my %hh = ('QUESTION_TEXT' => 0); # my %hh = ('QUESTION_TEXT' => {}); # my %hh = ('QUESTION_TEXT' => {'F'=> 3}); my $value = $hh{'QUESTION_TEXT'}; if(ref($value) eq 'HASH'){ $HashSize = @TemArr = keys $hh{'QUESTION_TEXT'}; # to get hash size to tesitng }else{ $HashSize = 1; # not hash (may be ARRAY or SCALAR or ... etc) } # print "--[$HashSize]\n"; if($HashSize){ print "[$value]\n"; }else{ print "[NULL]\n"; }