$val =~ s/ *$//g;  # Strip trailing white space from value
  $config{'db'}{"$key"} = $val;
  $config{"$key"} = $val;
[download]

When I use $config{'db_name'} it works. When I use the $config{'db'}{'db_name'}, it gives me the HASH ref error. Seems like that string substitution ought to clean out that extraneous space. I'm not sure why its not.

-- Hugh

Try s/\s*$//; instead of your regex. It might not be a literal space - it might be any one of a number of whitespace characters.

Plus, the problem isn't with $val, it's with $key. Try printing out $key in each iteration with single-quotes around it.

---

My criteria for good software:

1. Does it work?
2. Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?

Thank you for your time, kind monk.

I've tried \s*, \S* and \ * in string substitutions in an effort to lose that trailing space. I have now intoduced a line which reads:

print STDERR "|$host|, |$db|, |$user|, |$pw|";
[download]

to determine where that space might be introduced. In Main::, when I define $db as $config{'db_name'}, I get the right value in the log. When I define $db as $config{'db}{'db_name'}, it throws the HASH ref error (as a Fatals to Browser message) and bombs out before it gets to my print STDERR debug statement.

As you can see from the code I posted at http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=511957, my supporters_conf.pm module includes a while <DB> block which includes:

my ($key, $val) = split(/\s*=\s*/,$_,2);
$key =~ s/^\s*//;
$val =~ s/ *$//g;  # also tried \s* and \S*, as well 
$config{'db'}{"$key"} = $val;
$config{"$key"} = $val;
[download]

So I'm thinking this has something to do with the $config{'db'}{'db_name'} piece and not with the value assigned to this hash element.

-- Hugh