in reply to Re^2: Can't use string ("query") as an ARRAY ref error
in thread Can't use string ("query") as an ARRAY ref error

What you've showed us can't work if $query contains the string "query".

To get into the "then" part, $hash{query} must contain the string "query", which will cause the following @{$hash{$query}} to fail.

If you get into the "else" part, $hash{query} is set to the string "query", which will cause the following @{$hash{$query}} to fail.