Put another way, the value of the hash element $prices{"pizza"} is a simple scalar: 12.00. The value of the hash element $sidstat{$instsid} pasted earlier was a hash reference, and print printed the stringization of such a reference: something like HASH(0x2017b98).
Consider an example:
c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"use Data::Dumper;
;;
my %hash;
;;
$hash{'pizza'} = 12;
$hash{'ref_to_hash'} = { 'one' => 'uno', 'two' => 'dos', };
;;
for my $hash_key (keys %hash) {
print qq{'$hash{$hash_key}'};
print Dumper $hash{$hash_key};
}
"
'12'
$VAR1 = 12;
'HASH(0x185b68)'
$VAR1 = {
'one' => 'uno',
'two' => 'dos'
};
Give a man a fish: <%-{-{-{-<
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