Perl: Return hash from subroutine

Question

I have been trying examples for hours but I can\'t seem to grasp how to do what I want to do.

I want to return a hash from a subroutine, and I figured a reference wa

Answer 1

You probably don't want to be doing this:

return \$hashTable{ $login };

You are returning a reference (pointer) to your hash. Try just

return $hashTable{$login} 

Which will return the account number.

Or if you really want a hash with a bunch of people in there then

return \$hashTable

is fine (don't add the {$login} part), but on the other side you need to be dereferencing.

eg:

   my $p = authUser()
   if ($p->{'Dr. Brule'})
   ...

Notice the -> in there. It de-references the pointer you passed back.