You need to ensure that you are testing scalars. %USERLIST->{$USER}->{'TIME'} should be written as $USERLIST->{$USER}->{'TIME'} (note the leading dollar sign). In this case, you're evaluating the entire hash in scalar context. That's going to have unpredictable results.

Cheers,
Ovid

Update: I tested your method of looking up hash elements and it appears to work: 

use warnings;
my %hash1 = ( test => 3 );
my %hash2 = ( bobby => 15,
              what  => 'thehell' );

print "good\n" if %hash1->{'test'} < %hash2->{'bobby'};
print "good1\n" if $hash1{'test'} < $hash2{'bobby'};

[download]
However, it is definitely not how it's usually done and I suspect you'll find that most agree that using the $ first is preferable. Not sure if there are any issues with the other way.

Also, just because you have a particular key in existence does not mean that it's defined.

Make sure that %USERLIST->{...} is changed to $USERLIST{...}.

Join the Perlmonks Setiathome Group or just click on the the link and check out our stats.

In reply to (Ovid) Re: Warnings, and declaring Hashes of Hashes. by Ovid
in thread Warnings, and declaring Hashes of Hashes. by BatGnat

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.