Try this simple cgi to show the benefit of using Dumper.

#!perl
# Dumper demo cgi
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

print "Content-Type: text/html\n\n";
print '<pre>';

my $ref = [ { ID => 'ABC'},{ ID => 'DEF'},{ ID => 'GHI'} ];
print '<h2>$ref</h2>';
print Dumper $ref;
print '<hr/>';

my @array = map { $_->{ID} } @$ref;
print '<h2>@array</h2>';
print Dumper @array;
print '<hr/>';

my @error = @array."\n";
print '<h2>@error</h2>';
print Dumper @error;
print '<hr/>';
[download]

Also, note how map could be used to replace this code in search_item()

my @array = @$resultsRef
foreach my $hit (@array) {
  # $hit is a hash reference.
  my %hash = %$hit;
  push @searched, $hash{ID};
}
[download]

even better though, would be to drop the %hash = %$hit and write the push command as push(@searched, $hash->{ID}); which saves so much typing, and is much more readable and understandable...having to do "my %hit = ..." gets tedious - especially when yer imagination for new var names gets exhausted lol

haha! yes, yes - quite correct. it's been a long while since I looked at this thread, and I am so very happy that I changed this search_item to reflect how you wrote it. I recoded that routine long ago - so that makes me feel great and feel like i'm on the right track with that, so thank you very much! most cool