Thanks for you answer. It solves my problem! No, it is not my homework (got something else). I'm just trying to create a script where I need something similar (no families and no flinstones ;). I didn't want to write the full code, since I only need this in a single sub. I am using strict, warnings, diagnostics and even perlcritic (cruel). I played around with something like this: 

get_family_member('bart',$families);

sub get_family_member {
  my @args = @_;
  my $who = shift @args;
  my $families = shift @args;
  foreach my $family (%families) {
    if ($families->{$family}->{kid} eq "bart") {
      return $dfamilies->{$family}->{kid};
      last;
    }
  }
}

[download]
but where would I say, it should die, when 'bart' is not found? It has been a while since I used perl the last time. I returned, because I missed the nice community and CPAN. However, since I used some more exotic languages (far away from C-like styles and paradigms) I guess I need to rewire my brain. I hope I remember correctly, how Perls scopes and datatypes work. Maybe I should just try to find my old perl books.

In reply to Re^2: Finding hashes in hashes of hashes by cyphy
in thread Finding hashes in hashes of hashes by cyphy

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