I've have been going around in circles trying to get a grasp on objects, and when I finally go to give it a try, I can not get an object to work as I was hoping.

package Twitter::Objects;
use strict;
use warnings;

use lib '..';
use Base::Data qw(data_file get_hash);

my %accounts = get_hash(
  file => data_file('Twitter','account_totals.txt'),
  headings => [qw(screen_name followers friends updates)],
);

sub new {
  my $self = \%accounts;
  bless($self);
  return $self;
}

1;
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Now, when I go to get data out of that object, I have to type my $foo = Twitter::Objects->new; print $foo->{Lady_Aleena}{updates};. I thought a way to shorten that would be the following.

package Twitter::Objects;
use strict;
use warnings;

use lib '..';
use Base::Data qw(data_file get_hash);

my %accounts = get_hash(
  file => data_file('Twitter','account_totals.txt'),
  headings => [qw(screen_name followers friends updates)],
);

sub new {
  my ($account) = @_;
  my $self = \%{$accounts{$account}};
  bless($self);
  return $self;
}

1;
[download]

However, when using the above like so ... my $foo = Twitter::Objects->new('Lady_Aleena'; print $foo->{updates};, I get back an empty string. So, why does the subhash not work but the main hash does?

get_hash

Just in case you want to know.

sub get_hash {
  my %opt = @_;
  open(my $fh, '<', $opt{file}) or die("can't open $opt{file} $!");
  my $line_number = 0;
  my %hash;
  while (my $line = <$fh>) {
    ++$line_number;
    chomp $line;
    my @values = split(/\|/,$line);
    my $n = 0;
    $hash{$values[0]}{sort_number} = $line_number if $opt{sort};
    for my $heading (@{$opt{headings}}) {
      $hash{$values[0]}{$heading} = defined($values[$n]) ? $values[$n]
+ : '';
      ++$n;
    }
  }
  return %hash;
}
[download]