Dear Monks, I'm putting together a form to enter data in MySQL but when I look at the data inside the database, I'm getting hash references such as HASH(0x1875380) instead of the expected names. 

#!c:\perl\bin\perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use CGI;
use DBI;

my $q = new CGI;

if($q->param("addrecord")){

my %cols = (
        servicename => "Name",
        description => "description",
        url => "url",
        help => "helpdesk",
        group => "grp",
        hbi => "hbi",
        riskregister => "register",
        serviceman => "service_manager",
        servemail => "man_email",
        servtel => "man_phone",
        deputy => "deputy_manager",
        depemail => "dep_email",
        deptel => "dep_phone"
        
    );     


    my $keystring = ();
    my $valuestring = ();
    
    my $db = DBI->connect('foo', 'bar', 'baz') or die "Can't connect";
    
    foreach ( qw/ servicename description url help group hbi riskregis
+ter serviceman servemail servtel deputy depemail deptel
        /) 
                {
                if ({$_}) {
                            $keystring .= $cols{$_} .",";
                            $valuestring .= $db->quote({$_}) .",";
                    }
                 }
                
        #remove last comma  
            $keystring =~ s/,$//;
            $valuestring =~ s/,$//;
            
    my $statement = qq(
            INSERT INTO service_metrics ($keystring) 
            VALUES ($valuestring)
            );
        
    my $sth = $db->prepare($statement);
    if (! $sth) {
              die(sprintf('[FATAL] Could not prepare statement: %s\n\n
+ ERRSTR: %s\n', $db->errstr()));
            }
    $sth->execute();
    if (! $sth) {
              die(sprintf('[FATAL] Could not execute statement: %s\n\n
+ ERRSTR: %s\n', $db->errstr()));
            }
    $sth->finish;
    $db->disconnect();
    }
    print $q->header();
print $q->start_html(-title=>'New Service');
print "You have added a service";

[download]

It is probably the case that I have managed to do something rather silly but I cannot see what it is at the moment and it is driving me nuts. I'm fairly new to Perl and would be grateful if somebody could help me learn what I am doing incorrectly. Thanks.

In reply to Receinving hash where expecting a string by Anonymous Monk

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