Question

I make an API call to a third party and the results are returned to me in a hash value that I named %hash.

When I print the results using Data::Dumper I get the following results:

print Dumper %hash;

$VAR1 = '';
$VAR2 = {
     'Field1' => 'first result',
     'Field2' => {},
     'Field3' => 'random value',
     'Field4' => {},
     'Field5' => '102',
     'Field6' => '3600176056428',
     'Field7' => 'AhhRbwSXxIzaSZYuvgXE8AmAXUdy'
};

I’m not accustomed to Dumper returning two values. I printed the structure so that I could determine how to access the values it holds. I want to access the hash data structure in the second VAR ($VAR2). How exactly is this done?
$hash{‘Field2’} does not return any value (obviously).

Answer 1

You need to convert hash to hash reference:

print Dumper \%hash;

Otherwise %hash is converted into list of key => value pairs. That’s hash behavior in list context.

To access values you’ll need to use following:

$hash{''}{'Field1'}

Because in fact you have hash of hashes.