That's great thanks very,very much for replying : )

Your code does indeed work but if I try to use the same methodology in my code it doesn't. I get : 

Thread 1 terminated abnormally: lock can only be used on shared values
+ at UTP.pm line 189
<c>

Do you think this is because of the separate package ??
I declare and initialise the hash in MdAgent.pl :

<c>
...
my %Totals :shared;
...
msg("initialising totals");
foreach my $envo(sort keys %{$marketMsgHsh{$plugin}{environments}})
{
    $DEBUG && msg("sharing $envo");
    $Totals{$envo}=&share( {} );
    $DEBUG && msg("done.");
    foreach my $messageType(sort keys %{$marketMsgHsh{$plugin}{message
+Types}})
    {
        $Totals{$envo}{$messageType}=0;
    }
}
msg("done.");
...

[download]
...and then after that I create the thread : 
...
$mcastReaderThread=threads->create(\&doMcastSubscription, $interface, 
+$mcastAddress, $mcastPort);
$mcastReaderThread->detach();
...

[download]
in the thread I call the sub(in the "UTP" package)that actually handles the messages : 
...
while(1)
{
   $drop=1 unless $peer->recv($sock, $message, $maxLen,0)
   if($drop ==1)
   {
      $DEBUG && msg("recv failed : $!");
   }
   else
   {
      $actualPlugin->processMessage("$message");
   }
...

[download]
processMessage is defined in "UTP.pm". this is what I have it doing right now : 
...
     if($FeedAgent::sendRateStats)
     {
        lock %{$Totals{$serviceID}};
        $Totals{$serviceID}{$packetType}++;
        $DEBUG && msg("set Totals{$serviceID}{$packetType} == $Totals{
+$serviceID}{$packetType}");;
     }     
...

[download]
Is this going wrong because the processMessage sub is in a different package or am I doing something else wrong ??

In reply to Re^2: communication across threads using hash of hashes by stevehicks
in thread communication across threads using hash of hashes by stevehicks

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