I am on a beginner-cgi mailing list and someone recently questioned the 'why this instead of that' in regards to one of my responces. 
# The person was trying to return a result set
# was doing this.
$sth->execute; #his statement handle was $responce

%hash = \%($responce);

return %hash;

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I showed him to do something like this. (Disclaimer. Normally I'd tell him to use strict, but I didn't. 
$sth->execute;

my $hash = {};

while(my $row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref()){
  $hash->{$row->{'id'}} = $row;
}

return ($hash);

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The next question was why $hash instead of %hash... Someone else answered, but it got me to thinking. What IS the difference between a named hash and an unnamed hash? (besides syntax)

Kristofer Hoch

Si vos can lego is, vos es super erudio

In reply to What's the difference between named and unnamed hashes? by krisahoch

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