I think the following does everything you want. Going forward, please post real working code/data. Your hash references had to be completely reworked in order to demo them.

use warnings;
use strict;

my @a1 = (
    {
        name => 'orange',
        fruit => 'yes',
        vegetable => 'no',
        count => 50
    },
    {
        name => 'squash',
        fruit => 'no',
        vegetable => 'yes',
        count => 10
    },
);

my @a2 = (
    {
        name => 'orange',
        fruit => 'yes',
        vegetable => 'no',
        count => 60,
        id =>123
    },
    {
        name => 'squash',
        fruit => 'no',
        vegetable => 'yes',
        count => 10,
        id => 222
    },
);

my $count = 0;

for my $first (@a1){
    my $name = $first->{name};
    my $second = $a2[$count];

    for (keys %$second){
        if (! exists $first->{$_}){
            print "\@a2 has $_ for $name but \@a1 doesn't\n";
        }
    }

    for my $k (keys %$first){
        if (! exists $second->{$k}){
            print "$k doesn't exist in \@a2 for $name\n";
            next;
        }

        my $ne = 0;

        if ($first->{$k} =~ /^\d+$/){
            if ($first->{$k} != $second->{$k}){
                $ne = 1;
            }
        }
        else {
            if ($first->{$k} ne $second->{$k}){
                $ne = 1;
            }
        }
        print "$k changed from $first->{$k} to $second->{$k} in $name\
+n" if $ne;
    }
    $count++;
}

}

__END__
@a2 has id for orange but @a1 doesn't
count changed from 50 to 60 in orange
@a2 has id for squash but @a1 doesn't

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In reply to Re: comparing 2 arrays of hashes by stevieb
in thread comparing 2 arrays of hashes by pearlgirl

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