my $string = 'abcdefghijk'; my %match = (bc => "Michelangelo", efg => "Raffaello",de => "Caravaggio",ijk => "Tintoretto",hij=>"Leonardo",); foreach $art (keys %match){ print "this is INDEX $art =>",join(',',$match{$art}),"\n", if index my $tring,$art; } #### Parentheses missing around "my" list at C:\Users\Alberto\Documents\NetBeansProjects\PerlProject\Perl Essentials\hash_ref\partial_hash_check.pl line 48 (#1) (W parenthesis) You said something like my $foo, $bar = @_; when you meant my ($foo, $bar) = @_; Remember that "my", "our", "local" and "state" bind tighter than comma. Use of uninitialized value $tring in index at C:\Users\Alberto\Documents\NetBeansProjects\PerlProject\Perl Essentials\hash_ref\partial_hash_check.pl line 48 (#2) (W uninitialized) An undefined value was used as if it were already defined. It was interpreted as a "" or a 0, but maybe it was a mistake. To suppress this warning assign a defined value to your variables. To help you figure out what was undefined, perl will try to tell you the name of the variable (if any) that was undefined. In some cases it cannot do this, so it also tells you what operation you used the undefined value in. Note, however, that perl optimizes your program and the operation displayed in the warning may not necessarily appear literally in your program. For example, "that $foo" is usually optimized into "that " . $foo, and the warning will refer to the concatenation (.) operator, even though there is no . in your program. this is INDEX efg =>Raffaello this is INDEX de =>Caravaggio this is INDEX hij =>Leonardo this is INDEX bc =>Michelangelo this is INDEX ijk =>Tintoretto