The homework assignment seemed easy enough, create a class that reads in a file, generates a hash file, actually HOH, passes it back and do stuff to the hash file. I thought I had everything working until I decided to test out creating a new OBJ from an existing one. Actually not a part of the assignment, but we were supposed to allow for it, and having written the code I thought I'd test it, only to find out that having created the hash, returned it to main, and called another method the Hash seemed to have dissapeared. The basic print statements say that I'm generating a hash, it's the same hash in main, and the again the same has in the module. But when I try to access the data in it, nothings there. With not enough PERL under my belt yet, I can't see what must be something basic that I've overlooked. Perhaps someone can be of assistance, as nothing in the FAQ's seem to deal with thos particular problem. Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer. 
#!/bin/perl
use lib (".");
use Rainfall;
 
$weather = Rainfall->new('$infile');
$storms = $weather->new();  # clone Rainfall
:

#!/bin/perl
package Rainfall;
sub new
{
   my $type = shift;
   my $class = ref($type) || $type;
   my ($States,$other) =({}, {});
   my ($infile,$key1,$key2,$ary,$city,$state);
   my $clone = (["clone"]);
   if (@_)
   {
      $infile = $ARGV[0];  # get input weather filename
      open (infl,"<$infile")
         || die "Cannot open $infile \n";
 
      while (<infl>)        #read the whole
      {
         ($state, $city, $ary) =  (split/:/);   # speperate the state
         $state = ucfirst $state;
         $city = ucfirst $city;
         $States{$state}{$city} = $ary;  #Build hash file
      }
 
      close (infl)
         || die("$infile can't be closed:$1");
      bless $States, $class;
      print "new is $States\n";
      foreach $state (sort keys %States)
      {
         foreach $city (sort keys %{$States{$state}})
         {
            $str = join(",",$state,$city);
            printf "%-30s %s\n ",$str,$States{$state}{$city};
         }
      }
  }
 
   elsif (ref $type)
   {
      foreach $key1 (keys %$type)
      {
         print "clone k1 $key1\n"; #<=== This never happens
         foreach $key2 (keys %{$type{$key1}})
         {
             $other{$key1}{$key2} = $type{$key1}{$key2};
             print "k1 $key1  k2 $key2 \n";
         }
      }
      print "cloning $type to $other\n";
      bless $other,'Rainfall';
      foreach $state (sort keys %other)
      {
         foreach $city (sort keys %{$other{$state}})
         {
            $str = join(",",$state,$city);
            printf "%-30s %s\n ",$str,$other{state}{$city};
         }
      }
 
   }
   else
   {
      bless {}, 'Rainfall';
   }
   return ref($type) ? $other : $States;
 }

[download]
Data would be State:city:1.2 2.1 3.4 ...

In reply to Obj ref to %hoh by Robertn

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