in reply to Bad file slurp or Bad Dumper code?

TIMTOWTDI 
use strict;

my %password = %{ read_passfile('/etc/passwd') };

sub read_passfile {
    open (PF, shift) or die "Couldn't read password file: $!";
    return { map {chomp;split(':',$_,2)} <PF> };
}

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I am returning a reference to the hash instead. Replace ':' with your delimeter of choice, of course.

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom