I wasn't commenting on either of those. I was commenting on the original poster's last example:

if ($access) { 
    foreach (@{$access}) { 
        $set{$_->[0]} = $_->[1]; 
    } 
}
[download]

That's just fine as it is. No need for a map. In fact, a map would be difficult here, unless we presume %set is already empty before we get here.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker