Hi Monks,

I haven't dared tread this hallowed ground before now, but looking at some of the other questions, it looks like apprentices like me are welcome. In any case, I have a problem understanding referencing and dereferencing (well, i think that's my problem). Here is my code:

#!/ms/dist/perl5/bin/perl5.8
# Standard module imports

use Data::Dumper;
use strict;
use warnings;

my $hashArrayRef;

$hashArrayRef = [{
              'dateOfBirh' => '22 March 1971',
              'firstName' => 'Ronnie',
              'lastName' => 'Smith'
            },
            {
              'timeNow' => '14 April 1972',
              'firstName' => 'Claudia',
              'lastName' => 'Winkleman'
            }];

        
print Dumper(\$hashArrayRef);
print "\n";
            
my @deRefHashArray = @$hashArrayRef;

print Dumper(@deRefHashArray);
print "\n";
print scalar @deRefHashArray;
print "\n";

my %resultHash;
my    $countResult =     $#deRefHashArray;
print $countResult;
print "\n";

for (my $counter = 0; $counter < $countResult; $counter++) {
        %resultHash = {$deRefHashArray[$counter]};
        while ( my ($key, $value) = each(%resultHash) ) {
        print "$key => $value\n";
    }
}


1;
[download]

And here's the ouput:

$VAR1 = \[
            {
              'firstName' => 'Ronnie',
              'dateOfBirh' => '22 March 1971',
              'lastName' => 'Smith'
            },
            {
              'firstName' => 'Claudia',
              'timeNow' => '14 April 1972',
              'lastName' => 'Winkleman'
            }
          ];

$VAR1 = {
          'firstName' => 'Ronnie',
          'dateOfBirh' => '22 March 1971',
          'lastName' => 'Smith'
        };
$VAR2 = {
          'firstName' => 'Claudia',
          'timeNow' => '14 April 1972',
          'lastName' => 'Winkleman'
        };

2
1
Odd number of elements in anonymous hash at arrayTest_monk.pl line 38.
Reference found where even-sized list expected at arrayTest_monk.pl li
+ne 38.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at arrayTest
+_monk.pl line 40.
HASH(0x82007a4) =>
[download]

Essentially, I have an array of hashes that is referenced. I want to iterate over the array, and then access the hash inside each of the elements - even in my example just to iterate over them too and print out the results. The problem comes in accessing the hashes - I can't grasp what I need to do to persuade my program that the element in the array is a hash, and therefore let me access it...

I know this post is long, but hopefully there's enough info to see what I'm strugggling with.

Many thanks.

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