I think use warnings; and use strict; would go a long way toward solving this for you. You call your arrayref $user sometimes, and some of those may be in the code.

The last index of $users will be in $#$users, not $$#users. Observe, 

$ perl -Mstrict -we'my $foo = ["a".."z"];print $#$foo,$/'
25
$ perl -Mstrict -we'my $foo = ["a".."z"];print $$#foo,$/'
14354
$

[download]
I'm not entirely sure what $$#users represents, but that explains your extra array elements.

I'm leery of your hash keyed to surname. When you insert Minnie, Mickey will get clobbered.

After Compline,
Zaxo

In reply to Re: What way to weigh an AoA? by Zaxo
in thread What way to weigh an AoA? by SamCG

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