Great! I'm just not sure how to get around this.... I do have the following at the top level, in main:

my $ref_data = ProcessFile($fh, "get_hosts");
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I also have $ref_data defined in the GetNewFWRules subroutine in the same way I have for GetHosts. But aren't all of those declarations in different scopes, i.e. main vs. a subroutine?

Either way, I changed the declaration in main to $ref_data2, and I still get the same thing. There are no other declarations of $ref_data.