One way to deal with autovivification is copying: 

use Storable qw/dclone/;
my $data = {
    test  => {
        foo => { bar => 'bar',
                 baz => 'baz',
                 bul => { foo => { bar => 'bul' } } },
        bar => { baz => 'baz' },
    },
    foo => { bar => 'foo' },
    bar => [1,2,{foo => {bar => 42}},3]
};

my @result = rec_data('->{foo}->{bar}',$data);
print join(':',@result),"\n";

sub rec_data {
    my $path = shift;
    my $data = shift;
    my $ref  = ref $data || return;
    my @vals = $ref eq 'HASH' ? values %$data : @$data;
    my $cdat = dclone($data);
    return (eval"\$cdat$path" || (),map{rec_data($path,$_)}@vals)
}

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In reply to Re: searching nested structures by Anonymous Monk
in thread searching nested structures by IOrdy

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