Hello,
I have a feeling that this is easier than I am making it out to be, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to initialize values in an object.

Here's what works for me, but I would like to call an initialize subroutine.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

package Obj;

sub new {
    my $class = shift;
    my $self = {
                    a => 20,
                };
    bless $self, $class;
    return $self;
}

package main;

my $obj = Obj->new;
print $obj->{'a'};
[download]

What I would like to do is call an initialize sub, but all of the following attempts return an error: Useless use of hash element in void context at obj.pl line 19.
I'm sure this is indicative of what I have done wrong, but I don't understand how this could be void context, since I'm assigning the values to the object...

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

package Obj;

sub new {
    my $class = shift;
    my $self = {};
    bless $self, $class;
    $self->initialize();
    #$self->initialize($self, );
    #initialize($self, );
    #$self = initialize($self, );
    #$self = $self->initialize($self);
    return $self;
}

sub initialize {
    my $self = shift;

    $self->{ 'a' => 10 };
}

package main;

my $obj = Obj->new;
print $obj->{'a'};
[download]

ok, so apparently the following works, but what if I have multiple values? And what if I want to pass values to the initialize routine?

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

package Obj;

sub new {
    my $class = shift;
    my $self = {};
    bless $self, $class;
    $self->initialize();
    return $self;
}

sub initialize {
    my $self = shift;
    $self->{ a } = 10;
    return $self;
}

package main;

my $obj = Obj->new;
print $obj->{'a'};
[download]

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