Fellow monks,

I'm using grep to remove an array element from a HoAoH and I assumed that if I deleted the array element, that the hash element would disappear as well. However, I'm getting a warning of "Use of uninitialized value in string eq" which I think is being generated because of the empty hash element in the array, but I can't figure out why grep would be looking at that after it has been eliminated.

This is the code I'm using: 

@{$bros->{$yr}} = grep {!($_->{last} eq $last)} @{$bros->{$yr}};

[download]

And my data structure is: 

$bros = { '1958' => [{'first' =>, 'last' =>, etc...], '1959' => [{..}]
+, etc..}

[download]
where the person's data is stored in a hash in the year array.

My question is, how to eliminate the warning error and eliminate the empty hash element in the array. I'm not exactly clear on how to undef the array element in the grep.

Would it be better to assign the anonymous structure to an array and then grep a physical array? I would think I would run in to the same problem.

Thanks in advance!

Useless trivia: In the 2004 Las Vegas phone book there are approximately 28 pages of ads for massage, but almost 200 for lawyers.

In reply to Using grep to remove array element from HoAoH leaving empty array-hash element by Popcorn Dave

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.