Ah, it's killing me. I tried your test program with my original XML file. Same error as before: 'Not a HASH reference at line 12' (which is: push @{$ret},join '|',).

I tried it however with the partial file that I sent you. Wow! It works perfectly! I ran again the original program with your modification on the partial XML file. Again, it works perfectly, I get exactly the results I hoped for.

So is it related to the input file? Maybe my XML file is somehow messed up. So for testing I generated a few more XML files with the appropriate software, but all of them caused this 'Not a HASH reference' error. I compared the complete XML files with the partial XML I sent you, went over and over them like a thousand times, but I couldn't find any difference, except for the number of 'Hit'-s of course, and consequently, the size. Oh, there was one other thing: In the complete XMLs the lines ended with a single newline character (\n), but in the partial XML the EOL was a carriage return and a newline (\r\n). So I replaced all the \n with \r\n, but I still got the error, so the EOL seems to be irrelevant. And with the partial XML the program still worked correctly even if I replaced every \r\n with \n.

I also tried to shamelessly hack into your code with my limited Perl knowledge, trying different ways to reference, but it only got worse (as had been expected :))

So all in all, I am totally clueless. I don't get why it should be a HASH reference in the first place; @{$ret} is an array, right? Not a hash. Then I don't get how the input file influences the reference. Especially that in line 12 there is nothing related to the input file, it only says that we will push values into the end of the empty @{$ret} array (and join some of them). And finally I don't get what is the key difference between the 'good' and 'bad' XML files. Why only the partial file is working? If the program runs properly for 2 hits, why it doesn't for 99 hits?

Mysterious. So much for today, tomorrow I will start removing the hits from a complete XML file one by one, to see if there is a size limit somewhere, or if it has any effect at all...

Thank you for your selfless help again!

In reply to Re^6: multiple XML fields in one line by smice
in thread multiple XML fields in one line by smice

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.