You're putting stuff in the anonymous array (potentially) twice:

$hash{$arg} = [@array];
push (@{ $hash{$arg} }, @array) unless /^\#|none|unkno/i;
[download]

The first line copies all of the contents of @array and populates an anonymous array with them, sticking it in the hash slot.

The second pushes all of the elements of @array onto the anonymous array, unless your regex matches. (Which it probably won't.)

I'd do something like:

while (<FILE>) { 
    next if /^#/;
    next if /none|unkno/i;

    chomp;     
    #  print "$_\n"; returns expected results      
              
    my @array = split;
    #  printing each array element also passes here
    $hash{$arg} = [@array];
}
[download]

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.