There are a few things wrong with your approach.
  1. You return the hash when you match a line for a single user
    Instead, put the return statement at the end of the sub.
  2. You replace the contents of the hash for each user
    Instead, add a single entry in the hash for each user doing this: 
    $UID_PATH{$USER} = $UID[5];

    [download]

For optimization you could decide to return the hash ref, \%UID_PATH instead of a flattened list, but then you'd have to fix the script to use a hashref instead ofa hash, everywhere. (In languages like PHP and Javascript, there is no difference between a hash ref (or a hash. (AKA "associative array" in PHP and "object" in Javascript)

In reply to Re: Retunining hash values from subroutines by bart
in thread Retunining hash values from subroutines by Bindo

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