ACK! It was the file name, I had a small typo in it that I didn't catch earlier. So now I ran it, but there are still some issues which I can't pin down.

The errors and output

Odd number of elements in anonymous hash at C:\..\perl\tokeparser.pl l
+ine 17.
Odd number of elements in anonymous hash at C:\..\perl\tokeparser.pl l
+ine 17.
Odd number of elements in anonymous hash at C:\..\perl\tokeparser.pl l
+ine 17.
Odd number of elements in anonymous hash at C:\..\perl\tokeparser.pl l
+ine 17.
Odd number of elements in anonymous hash at C:\..\perl\tokeparser.pl l
+ine 17.
Odd number of elements in anonymous hash at C:\..\perl\tokeparser.pl l
+ine 17.
Odd number of elements in anonymous hash at C:\..\perl\tokeparser.pl l
+ine 51.
$VAR1 = {
          'Saving Throw:' => {
                               'None' => undef
                             },
          'Casting Time:' => {
                               '2' => undef
                             },
          'Area of Effect:' => {
                                 '10 yds./level' => undef
                               },
          'Range:' => {
                        '0' => undef
                      },
          'Duration:' => {
                           '5 rds./level' => undef
                         },
          'Level:' => {
                        '2' => undef
                      },
          'Components:' => {
                             'V, S, M' => undef
                           }
        };
[download]

line 17

$hash{$key} = { @table };
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line 51

$hash{$key} = { @table };
[download]

I still haven't had that A-HA! moment where I get how this works.

It looks to me that the HTML of this HTML file is not compatible with the file I used to develop this code. Can I take a look at that file?

I suspect that, by contrast to the other file, here you used "th" tags to indicate the attribute names, instead of a combination of "td" and "b" tags.

Anyway, if that is indeed the case: don't panic. The parser can probably be tweaked to handle this, possibly by looking at the "colspan" attribute.

bart, you got it in 1. I totally forgot that the files that are online are completely different from the local files which I have structured a lot differently. I will just download the old files since the new ones are so very different. I took a look at the underlying code of the files that are online about 10 minutes ago right before I updated my reply to wfsp.

Update: After getting the right files, I ran your script. It worked almost flawlessly, except that there are a nested tables in some of the descriptions that are throwing this off. I am looking at the following lines thinking that something should be added there to take into account the nested tables. When colspan = "4" ignore the tables within it.

      if($flag == 1) {
        $_ = "";
        my $colspan = $token->get_attr('colspan');
        if($colspan) {
          push @table, $colspan == 2 ? 'school(s)' : 'description';
        }
      }
[download]

Have a cookie and a very nice day!
Lady Aleena

I don't know what you were trying to do, but { @table } IS an anonymous hash with an odd number (1) of elements.

Maybe you intended

$hash{$key} = \@table;
[download]

Rule One: "Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man."

I don't know what you were trying to do, but { @table } IS an anonymous hash with an odd number (1) of elements.

Only if @table contains an odd number of elements. That implies there's something fishy with her HTML.

The HTML I used as an example consists of a table with 4 columns, where column 1 and 3 are attribute names (to be used as hash keys) and columns 2 and 4 are attribute values (to be used as hash values).

Maybe you intended

$hash{$key} = \@table;
[download]

No, if she did that, every hash value would be a reference to the same hash.

The intention is to turn the current list of name/value pairs into a hash. Something like:

@table = ( foo => 10, bar => 20 );
$hashref = { @table };
[download]