Your code *does* work. What makes you think it doesn't?

<your code here>

require Data::Dumper;
print(Data::Dumper::Dumper(\%hash1));

__END__
output
======
$VAR1 = {
          'key5' => 'value5',
          'key2' => 'value2',
          'key1' => 'value1'
        };
[download]

Of course, you should quote key3 and key4 (it's good practice, and it's strict-friendly):
@array = ("key3", "key4");
or
@array = qw( key3 key4 );

And why use
"$_"
when you can simply use
$_

What doesn't work about it? If I add print keys %hash1; to the end of your code, it prints key5key2key1 What are you expecting?

#! /usr/bin/perl

%hash1=("key1"=>"value1","key2"=>"value2", "key3"=>"value3", "key4"=>"
value4", "key5"=>"value5");
@array=(key3, key4);

foreach (@array){
    delete($hash1{"$_"});
    }

while (($key,$value)= each (%hash1)){
print "$key =$value\n"};
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key5 =value5
key2 =value2
key1 =value1
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The short answer to the problem was to look at everything. Not just the piece of code you think isn't working.

Both %hash1 and @array are read in from a file. See where this is headed? I did a chomp when I was reading in the data for %hash1, but forgot to do a chomp when I was reading in the data for @array.

%key3\n ne %key3
%key4\n ne %key4
[download]

Thanks to all for the suggestions.
Mike

The reason I'm thinking it isn't working is if I print out %hash1 AFTER deleting the key/value pairs, it is the same size as it was before deleting the pairs.

I must have an issue elsewhere. Thanks for the help. I'll continue looking.
Mike

I'm curious... What do you mean by the size of the hash? How do you obtain it?

Thanks,
Mike

EDIT -

$before = keys %hash1;
$after = keys %hash1;
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It still works... $before is 5, $after is 3

Read more... (582 Bytes)

The problem is obviously not with delete, but with your data. Why don't you dump the array, the before-hash and the after-hash using Data::Dumper as shown in my first post. That will show the problem with your real data.