according to perl doc the keys() function will take a reference stored in a scalar, but it doesn't seem to work for me. I printed my reference to make sure it's really a reference but it still doesn't seem to work. Does keys() take a reference? If so I'll check my syntax.

$returns{'do_stuff'} = &do_stuff;

my $ref99 = $returns{'do_stuff'}->[2]
print keys($returns{'do_stuff'}->[2] ) , "\n";
print keys($ref99) , "\n";


sub do_stuff {
   my $ip = "198.18.0.210";
   my $uname = "admin";
   my $pass = "admin1";
   my $cmd = "show chassis fpc pic-status | no-more";
   my $ssh;
   my @output;
   my @out_lines;
   my @pics;
   my @fpcs;
   my %chassis;
   my $reachable;
   my $hostname = "mx480-0-re0";
   my $err;
   my $exit;


#doing stuff....

my @returns = (0 , "Success" , \%chassis , \@fpcs);
return(\@returns);
}
[download]

here's the Hash in question dumperer'd. It's actually a hash-of-arrays-of-hashes-of-arrays.

$VAR1 = 'do_stuff';
$VAR2 = [
          0,
          'Success',
          {
            'Slot 1' => [
                          'PIC 0',
                          'PIC 1',
                          'PIC 2',
                          'PIC 3'
                        ],
            'Slot 0' => [
                          'PIC 0',
                          'PIC 1',
                          'PIC 2',
                          'PIC 3'
                        ]
          }
        ];
[download]

---

---

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! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

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:
	&		&
	<		&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.