Jeez! I'm a silly bugger! Sorry for the waste of time here as the problem was completely foolish ...
here's what I was doing:

 
my $table_type = $params->{local}->{$station}->{realtime}->{table_type
+};

[download]

and here's what I should be doing:

my $table_type = $params->{local}->{realtime}->{$station}->{table_type};

I'll go sit in the corner now with my cap of shame on ...

In reply to Re^2: Scalar in structure field name (ddumper) by dpath2o
in thread Scalar in structure field name by dpath2o

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