$VAR1 = {
          'filenumber' => '01-0052',
          'results' => {
                         'Legal' => 'my lawyer made me do it',
                         'PriorpolDate' => undef,
                         'BldgLine' => undef,
                         'Deaths' => undef,
                         'Status' => 'OPEN',
                         'SearchType' => 'test',
                         'Notes' => 'this is where notes go…',
                         'Restrictions' => 'no restrictions',
                         'State' => 'IL',
                         'PIN2' => 'pin2yadayada',
                         'PIN3' => undef,
                         'City' => 'Champaign',
                         'LandVal' => '',
                         'SearchFromDate' => '2001-01-05 16:45:00',
                         'Drainage' => '1',
                         'Township' => 'village of champaign',
                         'EffectiveDate' => '2001-01-30 11:30:00',
                         'ImprovementVal' => '',
                         'Street' => '2408 Some Place',
                         'FileNumber' => '01-0052',
                         'Zip4' => '1234',
                         'Zip5' => '12345',
                         'OrderedBy' => undef,
                         'SearchedBy' => undef,
                         'MemberNumber' => '1234',
                         'Plat' => undef,
                         'LotSize' => 'a little bit smaller',
                         'Street2' => 'test street2',
                         'Easements' => undef,
                         'Exemptions' => '',
                         'Divorce' => undef,
                         'RequestDate' => '2001-01-30 11:30:00',
                         'MemberName' => 'W. Ghost Ryder',
                         'Probate' => undef,
                         'Wills' => undef,
                         'PIN' => 'assadsa',
                         'Access' => '100 feet of shoreline',
                         'TotalVal' => ''
                       },
          'script' => 'template.pl',
        };
[download]

Is it possible that the Range("A6") call is returning undef? Hoewver, that does not explain why it works after you assign it to a scalar. Perhaps the thing returned by Range() is a tied hash? Can you print out the result of the following:

my $range = $Sheet->Range("A6");
print STDERR "Ref:  ", ref($range),  "\n";
print STDERR "Tied: ", tied($range), "\n";
[download]

-ben

I did you one better and added print STDERR "Range:  $range\n"; into the mix. Here's the output:

Range: Win32::OLE=HASH(0x245b554)
Ref:   Win32::OLE
Tied:
[download]

Update: Further investigation shows that wrapping an eval around the hash like so:

$Sheet->Range("A6")->{'Value'}  = eval { $var_ref->{results}{'Legal'} 
+};
[download]

Also executes without error.

ryddler