Does the code you posted above work correctly, or is this the code that is broken? I installed the module and your above code works verbatim.

If the problem is in other code that you're not showing, it seems as though you're going to have to post it.

Interesting that the above code doesn't kick out the error for you. Using the above code (including showing the ref of each):

use Modern::Perl;
use Text::CSV::Slurp;
use Data::Dumper;

sub generate {
    my %inline;
    $inline{'total'} = 2;
    $inline{'items'} = [
        { 'name' => 'item1' },
        { 'name' => 'item2' }
    ];
    return \%inline;
}

my $ref = &generate();

print Dumper( $ref->{'items'} );

print "\$ref->{'items'} is " . ref( $ref->{'items'} ) . "\n";
foreach my $item ( @{ $ref->{'items'} } ) {
    print $item->{'name'} . " is " . ref( $item ) . "\n";
}

my $csv = Text::CSV::Slurp->create( input => $ref );
[download]

Gets the error for me on both mac and ubuntu boxes: Error on Mac:

$VAR1 = [
          {
            'name' => 'item1'
          },
          {
            'name' => 'item2'
          }
        ];
$ref->{'items'} is ARRAY
item1 is HASH
item2 is HASH
Need an an array of hashes input to create CSV from at /usr/local/Cell
+ar/perl/5.24.0_1/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.24.0/Text/CSV/Slurp.pm line 53
+.
[download]

And on Ubuntu box:

$VAR1 = [
          {
            'name' => 'item1'
          },
          {
            'name' => 'item2'
          }
        ];
$ref->{'items'} is ARRAY
item1 is HASH
item2 is HASH
Need an an array of hashes input to create CSV from at /usr/local/shar
+e/perl/5.22.1/Text/CSV/Slurp.pm line 53.
[download]

Looking at the source code for the create method in Text::CSV::Slurp I see the die message you reported at the beginning.

sub create {
    my ( undef, %arg ) = @_;

    die "Need an an array of hashes input to create CSV from"
        unless exists $arg{input} &&
               ref( $arg{input} ) eq 'ARRAY' &&
               ref( @{ $arg{input} }[0] ) eq 'HASH';
[download]

One of those three things must be wrong with the array of hashes you are passing. You'll need to test your Arrays of Hashes before calling create. To start you could set up some tests to tell you when it fails. Something like:

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

sub generate {
    my %inline;
    $inline{'total'} = 2;
    $inline{'items'} = [
        { 'name' => 'item1' },
        { 'name' => 'item2' }
    ];
    return \%inline;
}

my $ref = &generate();

print Dumper( $ref->{'items'} );

die "failed exists at $ref->{'total'}"
    unless exists $ref->{'items'};
die "not ARRAY at $ref->{'total'}"
    unless ref( $ref->{'items'} ) eq 'ARRAY';
die "not HASH at $ref->{'total'}"
    unless ref( @{ $ref->{'items'} }[0] ) eq 'HASH';
print "ok";
               
#my $csv = Text::CSV::Slurp->create( input => $ref->{'items'} );

__DATA__

$VAR1 = [
          {
            'name' => 'item1'
          },
          {
            'name' => 'item2'
          }
        ];
ok
[download]

Using that code, it makes it all the way through:

$VAR1 = [
          {
            'name' => 'item1'
          },
          {
            'name' => 'item2'
          }
        ];
ok
[download]

Yes it ran fine for me, as I showed with the ok at the end of my code. Also, your original code ran fine for me. What version of the modules are you using?