Thanks for the reply. Here's what I get (notice there is no "Inside of the If" print after the second Data dump): #--- Before I check the if statement above I get : $VAR1 = '101010', '~', '0', 'quantity' ; $VAR2 = { '101010USED' => { '0' => 'ON' }, '101010' => { '0' => 'ON' } }; Inside of the IF : 101010 $VAR1 = '101010USED', '~', '0', 'quantity' ; $VAR2 = { '101010USED' => { '0' => 'ON' }, '101010' => { '0' => 'ON' } }; The code spans over different modules and such leading up to this small loop. As you can tell from the prints above shouldn't the if statement pass both times?