Question

I have the following code that returns a reference to an array with one element. That element contains a reference to a hash. I would like to eliminate this double referencing and work either with a copy of the hash or directly on the hash itself so I can use the keys.

Here’s the code:

my $extracted = $db_obj->extract('source_tag', $source_tag);

So $extracted contains a reference to an array. That array has a single element, a reference to a hash. The hash looks like this when I use Data::Dumper:

    $VAR1 = \\[
              {
                'data_center' => 'qe76',
                'description' => 'locator',
                'abs_delta_dollar_percent' => undef,
                'content_type' => 'Raw',
                'source_tag' => 'hg9efx4',
                'producer' => 'partner',
                'id' => '15282',
                'storage_type' => 'box',
                'storage_path' => '/mnt/storage/2012'
              }
            ];

I’d like to be able to directly access the hash so I can use the keys to grab the values. How do I remove this double referencing?

Answer 1

my %hash = %{ $db_obj->extract('source_tag', $source_tag)->[0] } ;