I have a subroutine which calls itself and I would like to have an array within it which is all of the keys within a nested array/hash I think I need it to remember the variable but I don't want to create a global variable. Here was my attempt. The hash looks something like this: 
{
batchplot_output_filename => "gps3", 
plot_all_variables => 'off', 
# DEFAULT PLOTS & VALUES
default_values =>
[
{
profiles => [qw(prof1 prof2)],

linewidth => ["2"],
single_dotnotes => 'On',
legend => ["On"],
},
],
#BEGIN CUSTOM PLOTS
custom_plots =>
[
  [ 
    {
        yvars => 'LATDIIP',
        xvars => 'ELONGI',
    },
  ],
]
}

[download]
sub analyse_user_inputs {
    my $hashORarray_ref = shift @_;
    my @the_inputs;
    
    foreach ( keys %{$hash_ref} ){
#        print "$_ \n";
    push(@the_inputs , $_);
        if (ref $hash_ref->{$_} eq 'HASH') {
            analyse_user_inputs($hash_ref->{$_});
        }
    elsif(ref $hash_ref->{$_} eq 'ARRAY'){
       foreach my $array_element (@{$hash_ref->{$_}}){
#          if(ref $info eq 'ARRAY'){
#             foreach my $element (@{$info}){
#                    analyse_user_inputs($element);
#             }
#          }
#          if (ref $info eq 'HASH') {
                 analyse_user_inputs($array_element);
#              }          
       }
    }
    }
    print Dumper(\@the_inputs);
    return(\@the_inputs);
}

[download]

In reply to subroutine memory variable scope by austinj

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