As far as I am able to tell, the warning is being generated in the grep. Splitting it in to seperate lines in the code said that the warning was in the second occurence of @{$bros->{$yr}} - the array being grepped.

The code I'm using to initialize the whole structure is: 

my $bros= {'1958' => [], '1959' => [], '1960' => [], '1961' => [],
           '1962' => [], '1963' => [], '1964' => []};

[download]

since I was lazy and wanted to pre-build my data structure.

Here's the Data::Dumper listing of before and after the grep: 

before grep:

$VAR1 = \[
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Bertelson',
              'first' => 'Gordon',
            },
            {
              'state' => '',
              'last' => 'Blaise',
              'first' => 'Larry',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Douda',
              'first' => 'Henry B.',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'NSW 221',
              ' => 'Australia',
              'last' => 'McHolick',
              'first' => 'Dwane',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Murray',
              'first' => 'Melvin',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Perry',
              'first' => 'Larry',
            },
            {
              'state' => '',
              'last' => 'Peterson',
              'first' => 'Ken',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Rianda',
              'first' => 'Dave',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Steffanoff',
              'first' => 'Nick',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'CA',
              'last' => 'Turner',
              'first' => 'Paul',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Wilson',
              'first' => 'Dick',
            },
            {}
          ];


after grep:

$VAR1 = \[
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Bertelson',
              'first' => 'Gordon',
            },
            {
              'state' => '',
              'last' => 'Blaise',
              'first' => 'Larry',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Douda',
              'first' => 'Henry B.',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'NSW 221',
              'last' => 'McHolick',
              'first' => 'Dwane',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Murray',
              'first' => 'Melvin',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Perry',
              'first' => 'Larry',
            },
            {
              'state' => '',
              'last' => 'Peterson',
              'first' => 'Ken',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Rianda',
              'first' => 'Dave',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Steffanoff',
              'first' => 'Nick',
            },
            {
              'state' => 'OR',
              'last' => 'Wilson',
              'first' => 'Dick',
            },
            {} <- here's the empty hash
          ];

[download]

so you can see exactly what I'm saying by there's an empty hash where Paul Turner's information was.

As far as removing the element, I thought using the negative grep would find everything that didn't match what I wanted and put it in the array. I thought I was on the right track with the negative grep but I don't understand the empty hash in the array still being there.

My assumption is that grep is choking for whatever reason on that empty hash, so is a negative grep the way to go here?

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 Re^2: Using grep to remove array element from HoAoH leaving empty array-hash element by Popcorn Dave
in thread Using grep to remove array element from HoAoH leaving empty array-hash element by Popcorn Dave

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