So as I understand it, you want to dump the current results and start a new %HOH when the $key changes.

When setting something like this up there are 3 things to consider:
1. What is the steady state, normal thing causes the desired action?
2. How do we get it started? (what is special about it?)
3. How do we get it stopped? (what is special about it?)

One approach for is to dump the results and reset %HOH when the $key changes. To do that perhaps: 

my $prev_key = "";
my %HOH;
while ( a line read from file )
{
   ...get the current key .. code that you have already
   if (  $current_key ne $prev_key)
   {
      if ($prev_key ne "" ) #don't dump first time through!
      {
         ...dump the %HOH  #this is the previous result
      }
      $prev_key = $current_key;
      ...%HOH=();  #reset!
   }
   
   ...processing of the current_key
}
...dump the %HOH ... #the last record...

[download]
To solve question (2), the first time through the loop, I don't dump the %HoH unless there is data there - there is more than one possible way to test for this (keys %HOH) or ($prev_key ne "" ). If the thing that does the dump/final processing of this time slice has some code to not do anything if there is no data, there is no nested "if".

To solve question (3), after the loop ends due to lack of data, dump the final incarnation of the hash.

There is of course more than one way to accomplish what you need, but the 3 questions are always the same : (1)steady-state operation, (2)getting started, (3)getting finished.

I recommend writing the "steady-state", question (1) code first and then "fiddle with it" until questions (2) and (3) work out ok.

In reply to Re^5: Hashes of Hashes of Arrays? Is it possible? by Marshall
in thread Hashes of Hashes of Arrays? Is it possible? by capriguy84

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.