Hash/array madness

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

When I define our_hash like:

$our_hash = {
    'this' => 'that',
    'foo' => ['bar', 'and', 'something', 'else']
};
[download]

And then do this:

$$our_hash{'somekey'} = {
    'foo' => $$our_hash{'foo'}
};
[download]

our_hash turns into:

$our_hash = {
    'this' => 'that',
    'foo' => [],
    'somekey' => {
        'foo' => ['bar', 'and', 'something', 'else']
    }
};
[download]

What I'm trying to do is get $our_hash->{'somekey'}->{'foo'} to have the same value as $our_hash->{'foo'}

I have no idea what I did wrong!

Thanks in advance!

Comment on Hash/array madness Select or Download Code

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Re: Hash/array madness by Fletch (Bishop) on Jul 25, 2002 at 02:08 UTC
`$our_hash->{somekey}->{foo} = $our_hash->{foo}` [download] See `perldoc perlreftut`, `perldoc perlref`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Hash/array madness by sauoq (Abbot) on Jul 25, 2002 at 02:25 UTC
I have no idea what I did wrong! I don't either. The code you posted is correct (although the style is a little rough.) I suspect you are doing something else you aren't telling us about if the hash you reference really ends up being what you say. I suggest using `Data::Dumper` to take a look at what you really have. Update: I double checked myself. I cut and pasted the code you provided and used Data::Dumper as I suggested. The output was exactly what I expected: `$VAR1 = { 'foo' => [ 'bar', 'and', 'something', 'else' ], 'this' => 'that', 'somekey' => { 'foo' => $VAR1->{'foo'} } };` [download] As you can see, `$VAR1->{'foo'}` is exactly equal to `$VAR1->{'somekey'}{'foo'}` as they both refer to the same array. You should, BTW, keep that in mind if you change an element of that array. Do you want `$our_hash->{'somekey'}{'foo'}` to refer to the same array referred to by `$our_hash->{'foo'}` or do you want it to refer to an array which is a copy of the one referred to by `$our_hash->{'foo'}`? -sauoq "My two cents aren't worth a dime.";	[reply] [d/l] [select]