If you want to have a subroutine apply some kind of "action" for you, to several things (internal to that subroutine), then you can use a subroutine reference. Example: 
while ( (my $key, my $value) = each %partners) {
    if ($item eq $key) {
        ($partners,$email,$nickname,$realname,$postcode,$phone) = (@$v
+alue);
        push (@allmembers, $item);
        my @partners_split = split / /, $partners;
        push (@allmembers, @partners_split);
    }
}

[download]
Becomes: 
sub do_thing {
    my ($partners,$item,$action) = @_;
    while ( (my $key, my $value) = each %$partners) {
        if ($item eq $key) {
            $action->($key,$value)
        }
    }
}

do_thing(\%partners,$item,sub {
    my ($key,$value) = @_;
    
    ($partners,$email,$nickname,$realname,$postcode,$phone) = (@$value
+);
    push (@allmembers, $item);
    my @partners_split = split / /, $partners;
    push (@allmembers, @partners_split);
});

# and then, you can do other things:
do_thing(\%partners,$item,sub {
    my ($key,$value) = @_;
    
    # do other stuff with %partners, $item, $key, $value, etc
});

[download]
That's the general idea, at least... that you would create an anonomus subref and pass it into your subroutine as one of the parameters. Think: map or grep.

On an additional note... I hope this code is just a thrown-together (not well-thought) example, as doing something like: 

while ( (my $key, my $value) = each %partners) {
    if ($item eq $key) {
        ...
    }
}

[download]
Is really just silly. You'd be much better off just doing stuff to $partners{$item}. 
------------
:Wq
Not an editor command: Wq

[download]

In reply to Re: creating a subroutine for accessing hash of arrays by etcshadow
in thread creating a subroutine for accessing hash of arrays by jonnyfolk

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