perlaintdead:

There are multiple approaches you could take, but to choose one, you'd have to know how you want to access your data. If you have a varying list of keys, for example, you could make a subroutine that would unravel the hashes:

my @keys = qw( kittehs weather tailflic );
my $value = unravel_hash(\%meows, @keys );

sub unravel_keys {
    my $ref = shift;
    while (@_) {
        my $key = shift;
        return undef if ! exists $ref->{$key};
        $ref = $ref->{$key};
    }
    # Ran out of keys, so $ref is the requested value
    return $ref;
}
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Of course, if you have array references mixed in, you'll have to make more complex code to check whether to reference by hash key or array index.

However, the module Data::Diver already does this for you, so you could just download and install it!

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.