GuiPerl:

It looks like you munged up the stuff in the code tags, so I'm not sure. However, it looks like you've used Data::Dumper to dump your data. If so, it appears like you might've done something like:

my %AG = (
    'BERF - Office of Director' => [
        [
            { SECTION  => 'BERF'     },
            { GRADE    => 'D1'       },
            { POSITION => 'DIRECTOR' },
            { NAME     => 'D. Fool'  },
        ]
    ]
);

print Dumper(%AG);
[download]

So to access any element of your data structure, start at the top, and work your way down/in to your data element. So if you want to get the GRADE, you'd need to do something like this:

my $grade = $AG{'BERF - Office of Director'}[0][0]{GRADE};
[download]

If you look at the data, you can see the nested pair of square brackets: That means that you have an array inside of an array. I suspect that what you *really* wanted is more like this:

my %AG = (
    'BERF - Office of Director' => {
        SECTION=>'BERF', GRADE=>'D1', POSITION=>'DIRECTOR', NAME=>'D. 
+Fool'
    }
);
[download]

This would make %AG a hash of hashes, and you could access GRADE like:

my $grade = $AG{'BERF - Office of Director'}{GRADE};
[download]

I'd suggest taking a short break from your current project and reading perldoc perldsc, perldoc perlreftut for a little while. Let me know if you need a bit more help.

Note: Oh, yeah, one other thing: If you're going to use Data::Dumper to print a data structure, be sure to pass a *reference* to the structure into the routine. So you'd use a statement like one of these:

my %hash = { a=>1, b=>2 };
my $ref = \%hash;

# This will give you a nice dump of your hash
print Dumper($ref);

# This will give you the same kind of dump
print Dumper(\%hash);

# This will give you a *HORRIBLE* dump:
print Dumper(%hash);
# It'll give you something like:
$VAR1 = 'a';
$VAR2 = 1;
$VAR3 = 'b';
$VAR4 = 2;
[download]

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

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