I just want to point out a small error in your code, which in this case proved to be no error at all - but just because you were lucky. You wrote: 

while (<DB>) {
    @_ = split/[\t|,|\||\n]/;         # here things go accidently righ
+t ;-)
    $data{ $_[0] } = { @_[1..$#_] };
}

[download]

You wanted to split on  <tab>, <,>, <|> or <newline> and you used a character class for that. A character class matches any of the characters in that class, e.g. [aeiou] matches any one vocal and you must not use an alternation character <|> in the class! The code worked nevertheless as - by chance - the <|> is part of the character class. It need not be escaped, but you can do it if you want. If you want to use alternation than you would have to write 

@_ = split /\t|,|\|\n/;

[download]
but this is not efficient. The character class is the better idea. So you would end up with 
@_ = split /[\t\n,|]/;

[download]

Furthermore, if you are not sure whether there is additional space around the delimiters this would change to 

@_ = split /[\s,|]+/;

[download]

allowing for one or more of the chars in the character class. I also removed the split on the ending <newline> as this only produces an empty field at the end which is not returned by split.

See also split and perlre.

-- Hofmator

In reply to Re: Re: Stuck while learning about the hash by Hofmator
in thread Stuck while learning about the hash by Stamp_Guy

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