#!/usr/bin/perl 
use warnings; 
use strict; 
use Getopt::Long;  
 
my ($confFile, $debug, $usage); 
GetOptions( "conf=s" => \$confFile , 
            "debug" => \$debug); 
$usage = "--conf=<input-conf-file> --debug";  
 
my %components;  
 
# open conf file 
open (CONF_FILE, "$confFile") ||  
    die "Failed to open confFile=$confFile\n";  
 
# read file contents 
sub readFile { 
    my @records; # list of all records in file 
    my $record;  # single record in @records  
 
    undef $/; 
    @records = split(/\cM\cJ/, <CONF_FILE>);  
 
    foreach $record (@records) { 
        my ($com, $subcat, $cat, $summary, $steps, $expRes, $pri, @temp); 
        my %entry;  
 
        chomp $record; 
        @temp = split (/\cJ/, $record); #ger rid of embedded newline 
        $record = join '', @temp; #setup record again after removal of newlines  
 
        print "Read: $record\n" if $debug;  
 
        # parse record into individual fields and put in a hash 
        ($com, $subcat, $cat, $summary, $steps, $expRes, $pri) = split (/,/, $record); 
        $entry{com} = $com; 
        $entry{subcat} = $subcat; 
        $entry{cat} = $cat; 
        $entry{summary} = $summary; 
        $entry{steps} = $steps; 
        $entry{expRes} = $expRes; 
        $entry{pri} = $pri;  
 
        print "\tParsed fields: $com ;; $subcat;; $cat;; ", 
              "$summary;; $steps;; $expRes;; $pri\n" if $debug; 
        print "\tParsed fields: $entry{com} ;; $entry{subcat};; $cat;; ", 
              "$summary;; $steps;; $expRes;; $pri\n" if $debug;  
 
        # push this hash 'entry' into the list in hash-of-hash 
        # this hash 'components' is organized as components{Component1}{Priority} 
        # and this entry contains a list of hashes of the type 'entry' (above) 
        push @{ $components{$com}{$pri} }, \%entry;  ########## QUESTION BELOW 
    } 
}  
 
 
sub printOut { 
    my ($component, $pri); 
    my @records; 
    my $rec = {}; 
    foreach $component ( keys %components ) { 
        foreach $pri (sort keys %{ $components{$component} } ) { 
            print "Printing $component/$pri\n" if $debug; 
            @records = @{ $components{$component}{$pri} } ; 
            my $count = 1; 
            foreach $rec (@records) { 
                my %e = %{ $rec }; 
                print "$count: $e{com}, $e{pri}, $e{summary}\n"; 
            } 
        } 
    } 
}  
 
sub main { 
    &readFile(); 
    &printOut(); 
}  
 
 
&main(); 
  
 
[\code]  
 
   
 
Thanks.  I cleaned it up and the result is much better than my previous hasty   
 
 and kludgy attempt.  Now the basic thing works.  However one question I have is why do   
 
I need to pass the %entry by ref in last line of readFile() (see NOTE in code)?    
 
If I don't pass by ref then I think the hash somehow gets converted to   
 
string (key1 value1 key2 value2 ... etc.).  The way I'm doing it, is that the  
 
correct way of adding the hash to a list (and also of extracting) ?  
 
   
 
Thanks for the help :)