Thank you for your time, kind monk.

I've tried \s*, \S* and \ * in string substitutions in an effort to lose that trailing space. I have now intoduced a line which reads: 

print STDERR "|$host|, |$db|, |$user|, |$pw|";

[download]

to determine where that space might be introduced. In Main::, when I define $db as $config{'db_name'}, I get the right value in the log. When I define $db as $config{'db}{'db_name'}, it throws the HASH ref error (as a Fatals to Browser message) and bombs out before it gets to my print STDERR debug statement.

As you can see from the code I posted at http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=511957, my supporters_conf.pm module includes a while <DB> block which includes: 

my ($key, $val) = split(/\s*=\s*/,$_,2);
$key =~ s/^\s*//;
$val =~ s/ *$//g;  # also tried \s* and \S*, as well 
$config{'db'}{"$key"} = $val;
$config{"$key"} = $val;

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So I'm thinking this has something to do with the $config{'db'}{'db_name'} piece and not with the value assigned to this hash element.

-- Hugh

In reply to Re^7: more fun w/ HASh ref's by hesco
in thread more fun w/ HASh ref's by hesco

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