in reply to Data::Dumper and Hash of Hashes

This depends on how you assign your hash ref to the key nice - did you "stringify" a reference? 
my $nice = { foo => 'bar', baz => 'qux' };
my $mice = "three blind";
my %hitsdb = (
   nice => "$nice",  # this is the problem
   mice => "$mice",  # this is a bad habit
);

print Dumper \%hitsdb;

__END__
$VAR1 = {
          'nice' => 'HASH(0x80f8a20)',
          'mice' => 'three blind'
        };

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Never put bare quotes around variables. If this is the case, then remove them and you should be fine.

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