wow cannot believe I did not see how simple it really was. Anyway thank you, but in your code you do not use 
$entries{$name}{$uid} = { # User data keyed by uid
                    gid => $gid,
                    gecos => $gecos,
                    host => $host,

[download]
gid => $gid, gecos => $gecos, host => $host ???

In reply to Re^2: trying to decide best data structure for problem at hand. by mikejones
in thread trying to decide best data structure for problem at hand. by mikejones

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