Ahh . . . because they point to the SAME address space. This happens when you are not careful when assigning references. Again, pull out Data::Dumper and see what is really happening.

Oh, and associative arrays ARE hashes. A hash is simply an array whose indexes are assicated with a key, a key is simply a value that is 'hashed' to produce the proper index slot. When two keys share the same slot, they are said to 'collide' with each other, and a list is created to hold both values for the key. Keys that are very similar tend to collide, such as 1000001 vs 1000002.

jeffa