[Linux-disciples] perl question: why do modules return a reference to a hash and not a hash?

[Stephen R Laniel]

On Thu, Dec 22, 2005 at 01:46:41PM -0500, Adam Rosi-Kessel wrote:
> sub HashFunction {
>   my %hash = { 'a' => 1, 'b' => 2};
>   return %hash
> }
[snip]
> So apparently in the first example (where dereferenced variables are
> returned), the function called gets *three* parameters, although the second
> one is empty (?). In the second example (where references are returned),
> only two variables are passed to CheckFunction, which is probably the
> expected/desired behavior.

It worked the way it worked because you didn't define the
hash the right way:

my %hash = { stuff };

creates an anonymous *function*, not an anonymous hash. You
meant to do

my %hash = ( 'a' => 1, 'b' =>2 );

Again, the syntax for initializing hashes is the same as
that for initializing lists. I'm pretty sure that if you
rerun your function-that-calls-other-functions with a hash
as an argument, you'll get the output you expect.

-- 
Stephen R. Laniel
steve at laniels.org
+(617) 308-5571
http://laniels.org/
PGP key: http://laniels.org/slaniel.key
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