#!/usr/bin/perl -w use warnings; use strict; BEGIN { my %SeenMerged = (); sub mergehashes{ # Dies on circular references my @hashrefs = @_; die "Passed a non hashref" if grep { ref $_ ne 'HASH' } @hashrefs; my %merged = (); my @seen = grep { ref $_ eq 'HASH' } @SeenMerged{@hashrefs}; # Break circular links.. if (@seen){ die "contains a circular reference! bailing..."; } @SeenMerged{@hashrefs} = @hashrefs; foreach my $h (@hashrefs){ while (my ($k,$v) = each %$h ){ push @{$merged{$k}}, $v; } } while (my ($k,$v) = each %merged){ my @hashes = grep { ref $_ eq 'HASH' } @$v; $merged{$k} = $v->[0] if (@$v == 1 && !ref $v->[0]); $merged{$k} = mergehashes(@hashes) if @hashes; } delete @SeenMerged{@hashrefs}; return \%merged; } }