Sorry venerable monks this has a lot of code and output but I have no idea why I'm getting the result I am. The sub routine sets up a group of Entry boxes and tries to add default values to the boxes which it extracts from a hash. This works unless the value I'm trying to insert is -1. In which case I get -1-1 any other value outputs fine and dandy. Does perl have a special meaning for -1 if so how can I get round the problem?
As a side note I had worked without problems with this sub for sometime, and it was only luck or bad luck that I came upon a parameter of -1 in the test data. 
sub build_param_input{
 
    my $params = @_;
    
    my $file =  SBSTESTFUNCTIONS::get_XML_file_name('FILE'=>"$program_
+name.pm");
    $params = SBSTESTFUNCTIONS::get_vars_hash('FILE'=>$file);
    
    print Dumper(\%$params); # testing
#output
#$VAR1 = {
#          'STOP_AFTER' => [
#                            'G2155_STOP',
#                            '-1',
#                            undef
#                          ],
#          'START_FROM' => [
#                            'G2155_START',
#                            '-1',
#                            undef
#                          ],
#          'RESPONSE' => [
#                          'G2155_RESPONS',
#                          'G2155_RESPONS',
#                          undef
#                        ],
#          'SERVICE' => [
#                         'G2155_SERVICE',
#                         'ENQSYSSV',
#                         undef
#                       ],
#          'SHARED' => [
#                        'G2155_SHARED',
#                        'Y',
#                        undef
#                      ]
#        };
    
    my $count;
    foreach my $key (keys(%$params)){
        $count++;
        my $name = $lf1->Entry(-textvariable=>$key);
        $name->insert('e',$key);
        my $pinput= $lf1->Entry(-textvariable=>$$params{$key}[1]);
        $pinput->insert('e',$$params{$key}[1]);#Inserts the -1-1 but o
+ther values OK.
        
        print "$$params{$key}[1]\n"; #to test
#Output to stdout
#-1
#-1
#G2155_RESPONS
#ENQSYSSV
#Y
        $name->grid(-row=>$count, -column=>1);
        $pinput->grid(-row=>$count, -column=>2);
    }
    $count = undef;
 }

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In reply to Printing -1 in a Tk Entry. by Scarborough

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