Hello iatros, and welcome to the Monastery!

Each element of a hash (or of an array, for that matter) must be a scalar value. So if you want to store an array of values in the points slot of a hash, you have to store a pointer to that array:

$student = {
    ...
    points => \@points,
};

[download]

or

$student = {
    ...
    points => [@points],
};

[download]

See perlreftut and perldsc.

Update: To elaborate on stevieb’s point: if the array @points contains the elements ('a', 'b', 'c', 'd'), then the assignment

$student = {
    ...
    points => @points,
};

[download]

is effectively this:

$student = {
    ...
    'points', 'a',
    'b', 'c',
    'd',
};

[download]

or, equivalently,

$student = {
    ...
    points => 'a',
    b      => 'c',
   'd',
};

[download]

— which explains why the compiler is warning about an odd number of elements in the hash: the last array value ('d') becomes a hash key with no associated value.

Hope that helps,

Athanasius <°(((>< contra mundum Iustus alius egestas vitae, eros Piratica,

In reply to Re: How to code a complex AoH? by Athanasius
in thread How to code a complex AoH? by iatros

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.