For the moment I only spotted an empty prototype that can cause strange behaviours: sub match_query(){.. must be sub match_query{..

from modernperlbook:

> A subroutine declared with an empty prototype (as opposed to an absent prototype) which evaluates to a single expression becomes a (compiletime ( editor’s note )) constant in the Perl 5 optree rather than a subroutine call

Anyway the Basic debugging checklist suggest to print out your data and I use this as primary, if only, debug tecnique. The principle is: know your data

The easiest thing to check is if something come up to empty in your original received hash:

sub match_query(){
    my $indexfile = shift;

   foreach my $key(keys %$indexfile){  print "DEBUG: [$key]=>[$$indexf
+ile{$key}]\n"}
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Add also a debug print statement for @match_count

Instead of bare print statements you can profit of the core Data::Dumper or the better, imho, Data::Dump that you can find at CPAN.

L*