I guess this is not possible by design, but just in case I am missing something...

Is there a clever/efficient way to make this work (other than with a loop)?

my %hash = map { delete $_->{id_1} => { delete $_->{id_2} => $_ } } @ary_of_hrefs;

It should produce the same result as the below (except not a reference)

my $hash;
foreach my $href (@ary_of_hrefs) {
    my $id_1 = delete $href->{id_1};
    my $id_2 = delete $href->{id_2};
    $hash->{$id_1}->{$id_2} = $href;
}

[download]

In reply to map into a multidimensional hash by nikmit

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.