Hopefully you can tell what I'm trying to do.

On a very minor note: unless you've changed the value of $/ somewhere earlier in your script, the chomp @row line in your while() loop probably isn't doing anything.

Actually, you could get rid of @rows altogether and just assign the output of the split to @data{@fields}, but whether you should is a somewhat 'religious' issue that has no bearing on the question you are actually asking. :)

UPDATE: Is $menudir supposed to be an array reference of the value of key 'ven' from each of the hash references? If so, you might try something like:

my $menudir = [map { $_->{ven} } @records];
[download]

- Matt Riffle

...open the file...
my %menuhash1 = ();
my @fields1 = split(/\t/, <FILE>); chomp @fields1;
my @records1;
my $prodlisting;
my %ref1; 
while(<FILE>) {
chomp;     
    my @row1 = split(/\t/); 
        my %data1; 
        @data1{@fields1} = @row1;
        chomp @row1; 
        push @records1, \%data1;
}
close (FILE);
foreach my $ref1 ( 
   sort {(-1,0,1)[rand 3]} @records1
){
my $thumbgif = "thumb.gif";
my $menudir = "$ref1->{'dir'}";
$menudir = "$menudir/";
my $thumb = "$webdir\/$menudir$thumbgif";
print "<img align=\"center\" border=\"0\" src=\"$thumb\">";

etc...
[download]

I'm trying to move the "my's" outside the block. $menudir is the problem.

my $thumbgif = "thumb.gif"; # no need to redeclare this every time.
my $menudir;
foreach my $ref (sort {(-1, 0, 1)[rand 3]} @records)
{
      $menudir = $ref->{dir};
      my $thumb = "$webdir/$menudir/$thumbgif";
      print qq{<img align="center" border="0" src="$thumb">};
}
[download]

Is that all you wanted? $menudir should never have been a problem to move outside the block. However please note that if you use what I've written $menudir after the block will contain only the value that it was set to on the last iteration.

As such, unless you specifically care about it's last value it really should be localised to that block.

Hope this helps.

jarich

"($ref(@records)->{ven})"

1. $ref(@records) is using round brackets which indicate a subroutine call,
2. you cannot call a subroutine on a CODEREF that way if that was what you are trying to do (it would be $ref->(@records)),
3. and that it won't actually evaluate to a subroutine call inside quotes.

Makeshifts last the longest.