Monks, I am fighting with a nasty little problem of finding out how many levels a HoHoH has for a particular key. I load a Hash with data from a file using Dumper and eval. 
*rvd*startScript : /binlib/mdi/rv/etc/start_rvd
*rvd*daemonPort : 7500
*rvd*rrcp*sendRate*bufferSize : 1000
chilsd03*rvd*daemonPort : 9000

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I need to determine the value of daemonPort and all other variables. If I am running on chilsd03 the value would be 9000 but anywhere else it would be 7500. I refer to this as the scope of the variable being either global or local. I need to scope this further to instance where there can be lines like. 
chilsd03*rvd*OUT*daemonPort : 9000

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So, the problem I am facing is that I need to figure out a good way to "walk" the hash and load up global and local values but keeping the integrity of the instances. Ideally I need to end up with a hash of 
0  'rvd'
1  HASH(0x83d6a40)
   'daemonPort' => 7500
   'daemonProtocol' => 'tcp'
   'httpPort' => 7580
   'reliability' => 60
   'startScript' => '/binlib/mdi/rv/etc/start_rvd'
   'version' => 6.9
4  'IN'
5  HASH(0x83d6b0c)
   'daemonPort' => 7500
   'daemonProtocol' => 'tcp'
   'httpPort' => 8590
   'instanceName' => 'IN'
   'reliability' => 60
   'startScript' => '/binlib/mdi/rv/etc/start_rvd'
   'version' => 6.9
6  'instances'
7  ARRAY(0x83d68f0)
   0  'rvd'
   1  'IN'

What I get instead

0  'rvd'
1  HASH(0x83d6938)
   'daemonPort' => 7500
   'daemonProtocol' => 'tcp'
   'httpPort' => 7580
   'reliability' => 60
   'startScript' => '/binlib/mdi/rv/etc/start_rvd'
   'version' => 6.9
2  'rrcp'
3  HASH(0x83d8818)
   'daemonPort' => 7500
   'daemonProtocol' => 'tcp'
   'httpPort' => 7580
   'reliability' => 60
   'startScript' => '/binlib/mdi/rv/etc/start_rvd'
   'transmissionBus' => HASH(0x83d87b8)
      'driverName' => 'sink,1'
      'numBuffers' => 500
   'version' => 6.9
4  'OUT'
5  HASH(0x83d6a7c)
   'daemonPort' => 9575
   'daemonProtocol' => 'tcp'
   'httpPort' => 9590
   'instanceName' => 'OUT'
   'reliability' => 60
   'startScript' => '/binlib/mdi/rv/etc/start_rvd'
   'version' => 6.9

10  'instances'
11  ARRAY(0x83d67ac)
   0  'rvd'
   1  'rrcp'
   2  'OUT'

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In reply to How many levels of indirection in a Hash? by crusty_collins

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