After realizing that menus wern't going to cut it, I deicded to simulate a CLI into my program. I have a hash set up as %command_list, with the list of all of my commands, using eval to run the subroutines. example: 
%command_list = 
  qw(
       quit          end_program()
       greeting      greeting()
       time          systime()
       help          help()                        
       log           log_status()
  );

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The problem is multi word commands. When I type "log" into my system, I have the program responds with "Log files inactive, type 'log start' to begin logging. I was planning to have another hash named "log" to then hold the routines for it. 
%log =
  qw(start   start_logs()
     stop    stop_logs()
    );
}

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I am using strict and believe this is the problem, but I believe there should be a way to do this while using "strict". Here is the error: Can't use string ("log") as a HASH ref while "strict refs" in use at....... I know the error isn't due to using the word "log". 
$command = <STDIN>; # assume $command="log start"
   @cl =split / /,$command;
   
   # if we have multi word command...   
    
   if (!(defined($cl[1]))){  #single word command
      chop $cl[0];
      $command_action= $command_list{$cl[0]};
   }
   else {   #multi word command
      chop $cl[1];
      print "$cl[0]\n"; #command
      print "$cl[1]\n"; #options to that command
      
      $command_action= $cl[0]{$cl[1]}; #trying to set $command_action 
+= to "$log{start};
   }
   
   eval $command_action; die "\n" if $@;
}

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Any suggestions on how to fix this || other methods that would work better are greatly appreaciated. Thanks, Thoth

In reply to Trying to simulate a CLI using hashes... by thoth

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