parth00:

I don't see your bug, but why not just use something like (untested):

sub populatemessagedefs {
        my $hashref = shift;
        my $string = shift;
        my @list = split(',', $string);
        while (@list) {
                my $k = shift @list;
                my $v = shift @list;
                $$hashref{$k}=$v unless exists($$hashref{$k}) and $v <
+= $$hashref{$k};
        }
        my %hash2 = split(',', $string);
}
[download]

Update 2: I missed the bit where you're keeping the largest value for each key. Corrected code above, original code below.

sub populatemessagedefs {
    my $hashref = shift;
    my $string = shift;
    %$hashref = (%$hashref, split(',',$string));
}
[download]

Update: I forgot to mention--you don't want to use a prototype on your subroutine definition.

...roboticus