I tried sending this in via perlbug, but I have received no indication that anything got through; besides I have a bit more info to offer... I have a rather large (40 MB; ~50K key) hash which is behaving oddly. If I use keys() to walk through the hash, certain items don't show up. I can, however, pull them out by specific request. Here is a demo script: #!/usr/bin/env perl # # dbc2 - check contents of db # # Written by Rich Morin, CFCL, 2001.01 { $mdb1 = '/home/meta/trim'; $path = '/etc/defaults'; dbmopen(%mdb1, $mdb1, undef) or die ("can't open $mdb1"); print "$mdb1{$path}\n"; print "\n=====\n\n"; for $key (keys(%mdb1)) { print "key=\"$key\"\n" if ($key =~ /defaults/); } dbmclose(%mdb1); } And the corresponding output: <filechar> <device>134400</> <inode>37</> <nlink>2</> <type>directory</> </filechar> <rdm_note> <name>/etc/defaults</> <description>default system configuration files</> <purpose> /etc/defaults is used to store a variety of default system configuration files (e.g., make.conf, pccard.conf, rc.conf). </> <category>directory</> <note> Do not modify the files in /etc/defaults. Instead, create override files in /etc. For example, if you wish to modify the settings that are being made by /etc/defaults/rc.conf, put the override (or supplementary) values into /etc/rc.conf. </> <files>/etc</> <files>/etc/defaults/make.conf</> <files>/etc/defaults/pccard.conf</> <files>/etc/defaults/rc.conf</> <see_also section="?" status="primary">?</> <see_also section="?" status="related">?</> <admin>?</> </rdm_note> ===== key="/etc/defaults/make.conf" key="/usr/src/etc/defaults/rc.conf" key="/usr/src/contrib/ncurses/include/capdefaults.c" key="/boot/defaults/loader.conf" key="/usr/share/examples/etc/defaults/pccard.conf" key="/usr/src/contrib/gcc/defaults.h" key="/usr/share/examples/etc/defaults/rc.conf" key="/etc/defaults/rc.conf" key="/usr/src/etc/defaults/make.conf" key="/usr/libdata/perl/5.00503/mach/sys/ttydefaults.ph" key="/stand/etc/defaults/rc.conf" key="/etc/defaults/rc.conf.local" key="/usr/share/examples/etc/defaults" key="/boot/defaults" key="/usr/share/examples/etc/defaults/make.conf" key="/stand/etc/defaults" -- -- http://www.cfcl.com/rdm email: rdm@cfcl.com phone: +1 650-873-7841Thread Next