$i is the loop variable for your for loop. Perl sets it to every value in the list that the loop is iterating over -- in this case, the list of numbers from 1 to $sites_config{'total_sites'}.

As an aside, any particular reason you're using a hash and not an array? It seems like you're mixing metaphors a bit to have </code>$site_config{'some_string'}</code> be at the same level as $site_config{$some_site_number}.

perl -pe '"I lo*`+$^X$\"$]!$/"=~m%(.*)%s;$_=$1;y^`+*^e v^#$&V"+@( NO CARRIER'

I find it easier to work with just one hash to store whatever I need than to have multiple arrays to store the same thing and try and guess the number of where something is stored to retrive it.

I think I wasn't clear. What I meant is, have a key in your %sites_config hash whose value is an anonymous array, which contains all of your sites. Thusly, you don't have to keep track of the total_sites on your own, nor use numbers as keys in a hash, and so on. I'd probably write something like:

my %sites_config = parse_sites_config();
sub parse_sites_config {
  open SITES_CFG, "< $sites_conf" or die "Couldn't open $sites_conf: $
+!";
  my %options;
  while(<SITES_CFG>) {
    chomp;
    s/\/\/\s+.*//g;    # Get rid of comments;
    next unless length;

    my($key, $operator, $value) = split/\s*(=>?)\s*/, $_, 2;
    if ($operator eq "=>") {
      push @{$options{sites}}, {site_name => $key,
                site_url  => $value};
    } else {
      $options{sites}[-1]{$key} = $value;
    }
  }
  return %options;
}

# Later..

for my $site (@{$sites_config{sites}}) {
  print $site->{site_name}, "\n";
}
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perl -pe '"I lo*`+$^X$\"$]!$/"=~m%(.*)%s;$_=$1;y^`+*^e v^#$&V"+@( NO CARRIER'