in reply to Unable to extract value from hash table

Check the output of 

use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper \%TAGS;

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$VAR1 = {
          'CONST_STR' => 1
        };

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You're using the => when you don't mean to:

The => operator is a synonym for the comma, but forces any word (consisting entirely of word characters) to its left to be interpreted as a string (as of 5.001). This includes words that might otherwise be considered a constant or function call.

Solutions: 

my %TAGS = ( CONST_STR, CONST_ID );
my %TAGS = ( +CONST_STR  => CONST_ID );
my %TAGS = ( CONST_STR() => CONST_ID );
my %TAGS = ( &CONST_STR  => CONST_ID );

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Re^2: Unable to extract value from hash table
by dr_dunno (Novice) on Apr 09, 2008 at 06:24 UTC
    I tried the code below but it still keeps giving me the same error (Use of uninitialized value in print). I am sorry, I am new to Perl, so I might be missing something in your earlier reply. 
        use constant CONST_STR => "MYSTRING";
    use constant CONST_ID  => 1;

    my %TAGS = ( CONST_STR, CONST_ID );

    my $fullString = "123456 MYSTRING 123456";
    my $string;

    ($string) = $fullString =~ /[A-Za-z]*/;

    print $TAGS{$string};

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[reply]
[d/l]

      When code doesn't do what you expect it to do,

      • Make sure the path of execution taken is the path of execution you expect the code to take. Investigate discrepancies.
      • Make sure variables hold the value you expect them to hold. Investigate discrepancies.

      There are two more errors in your code:

      • /[A-Za-z]*/ successfully matches the first 0 characters of $fullString, not what you want it to match.
      • Since there are no captures in /[A-Za-z]*/, it returns 1 on success even in list context.

      $string contains "1", and thus $TAGS{$string} is undef. Fix: 

          my ($string) = $fullString =~ /([A-Za-z]+)/;

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      (I moved the my. There's no reason for it to be on a separate line.)

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[d/l]
[select]
        Oh, thanks so much for your help and sorry for the trouble. I am learning how to code in Perl and I made a silly mistake along the way (and I'm learning from them).
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