Thanks for that but can I ask a hypothetical question? If the hash I was using was not %var but $self-{'VAR'} where $self is a blessed object reference and the original code which had been edited for clarity actually looked like 
$work =~ s{%(\w+)(?:\.(\w+))?}{
    defined $2
        ? $self->{'VARS'}{$1}{$2}
        : $self->{'VARS'}{default}{$1}
}eg;

[download]
How would one call your dive function in this hypothetical case? Because I've tried 
my $fml = $self->{'VARS'};
$work =~ s{ % ( \w+ (?:\.\w+)* ) }{ dive($fml, split /\./, $1) }xegr;

[download]
and even $fml = \%{$self->{'VARS'}}; but not substitution is happening despite cut'n'pasting from your example code which is working fine in another windowd. NGL this is a humiliating way to stumble at the finish line yet here I am.

In reply to Re^2: Recursively substitute against multidimensional hash by Maelstrom
in thread Recursively substitute against multidimensional hash by Maelstrom

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