It probably doesn't work because you're using braces, instead of parenthesis.

Which means that you're setting $ref to an anonymous hash, if $hash_count is zero.

Consider this code, and it's output:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

{
        my $a = 0;
        my $b = 1;
        my $c = 2;

        #
        #  $a is 0, so the second term will be evaluated
        #  $b is meaningless, and  just used as a place holder
        #  $c is 2, so 3 should be the answer.
        #
        my $right = $a ? $b : ($c ? 3 : 4);
        my $wrong = $a ? $b : {$c ? 3 : 4};

        print "Right=", $right, "\n";
        print "Wrong=", $wrong, "\n";

        print Dumper ([\$right]);
        print Dumper ([\$wrong]);
}
[download]

---

Odd number of elements in hash assignment at t line 17.
Right=3
Wrong=HASH(0x80e6154)
$VAR1 = [
          \3
        ];
$VAR1 = [
          \{
              3 => undef
            }
        ];
[download]

--Chris

e-mail jcwren