I'm trying to return a hash of arrays from a module. I think I'm creating the hash correctly, but if I try to return it, I get a reference to an empty hash. What should I be doing? 
    open(FMT, "./formats/$filters_file") || die "Can't open $filters_f
+ile.\n";
    while(<FMT>) {
        chomp;
        next if /^\*/; #comments line

        $var_name = substr($_,2,5);
        $var      = substr($_,53);
        $var      =~ s/\s+$//g;
        $var_name =~ s/(\$)|(\s+$)//g;

        if ( exists $filters{$var_name} ) {
            push @{ $filters{$var_name} }, $var;
        } else {
            $filters{$var_name} = [ $var ];
        }
    }
    close FMT;
    return %filters;

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In reply to returning nested data structures by brp4h

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