OK I found a couple of fixes, either make %current_case a package global with our then push a new ref to an empty hash into its typglob *current_case={}; or make current case a $scalar, store a ref to an anon hash in it $current_case={}; and replace all instances of %current_case{whatever} with $current_case->{whatever}. I guess the latter is the prefered solution

Cheers,
R.