This does what I think you're looking for. One caveat: It returns ANYTHING it finds at the end of the argument- even a hash ref (as though you hadn't gotten to the actual terminus). So if that's not what you're intending, you'll need to check your output. 
use strict;

my %variable_hash;

$variable_hash{a}{b}{c}{d}    = 40;
$variable_hash{e}{f}{g}{h}{i} = 50;
$variable_hash{a}{b}{c}{j}    = 45;


sub get_value
{
    my $argument = shift;
    my @tmp = split /\./, $argument;
    my %lastref = %variable_hash;
    my $max = @tmp;
    my $current = 0;
    my $found = 0;
    foreach my $arg (@tmp)
    {
        $current++;
        last unless (exists($lastref{$arg}));
        if ($current == $max)
        {
            return $lastref{$arg};
        }
        %lastref = %{$lastref{$arg}};
    }
    undef %lastref;
    return %lastref;
}

print get_value("a.b.c.d");
print get_value("e.f.g.h.i");
print get_value("a.b.c.j");
print get_value("a.b.c.k");
print get_value("a");
--
Jason Klueber
ookami@insightbb.com

/(bb)|^b{2}/
--Shakespeare

In reply to Re: quick question about hash element access by jdklueber
in thread quick question about hash element access by glwtta

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