Looking at the source code for the create method in Text::CSV::Slurp I see the die message you reported at the beginning. 

sub create {
    my ( undef, %arg ) = @_;

    die "Need an an array of hashes input to create CSV from"
        unless exists $arg{input} &&
               ref( $arg{input} ) eq 'ARRAY' &&
               ref( @{ $arg{input} }[0] ) eq 'HASH';

[download]

One of those three things must be wrong with the array of hashes you are passing. You'll need to test your Arrays of Hashes before calling create. To start you could set up some tests to tell you when it fails. Something like:

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

sub generate {
    my %inline;
    $inline{'total'} = 2;
    $inline{'items'} = [
        { 'name' => 'item1' },
        { 'name' => 'item2' }
    ];
    return \%inline;
}

my $ref = &generate();

print Dumper( $ref->{'items'} );

die "failed exists at $ref->{'total'}"
    unless exists $ref->{'items'};
die "not ARRAY at $ref->{'total'}"
    unless ref( $ref->{'items'} ) eq 'ARRAY';
die "not HASH at $ref->{'total'}"
    unless ref( @{ $ref->{'items'} }[0] ) eq 'HASH';
print "ok";
               
#my $csv = Text::CSV::Slurp->create( input => $ref->{'items'} );

__DATA__

$VAR1 = [
          {
            'name' => 'item1'
          },
          {
            'name' => 'item2'
          }
        ];
ok

[download]

In reply to Re: Issues with Array of Hashes by Lotus1
in thread Issues with Array of Hashes by ciscomonkey

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.