The Perl Toolchain Summit needs more sponsors. If your company depends on Perl, please support this very important event.
NAME
    Hash::Merge::Simple - Recursively merge two or more hashes, simply

VERSION
    version 0.051

SYNOPSIS
        use Hash::Merge::Simple qw/ merge /;

        my $a = { a => 1 };
        my $b = { a => 100, b => 2};

        # Merge with righthand hash taking precedence
        my $c = merge $a, $b;
        # $c is { a => 100, b => 2 } ... Note: a => 100 has overridden => 1

        # Also, merge will take care to recursively merge any subordinate hashes found
        my $a = { a => 1, c => 3, d => { i => 2 }, r => {} };
        my $b = { b => 2, a => 100, d => { l => 4 } };
        my $c = merge $a, $b;
        # $c is { a => 100, b => 2, c => 3, d => { i => 2, l => 4 }, r => {} }

        # You can also merge more than two hashes at the same time 
        # The precedence increases from left to right (the rightmost has the most precedence)
        my $everything = merge $this, $that, $mine, $yours, $kitchen_sink, ...;

DESCRIPTION
    Hash::Merge::Simple will recursively merge two or more hashes and return
    the result as a new hash reference. The merge function will descend and
    merge hashes that exist under the same node in both the left and right
    hash, but doesn't attempt to combine arrays, objects, scalars, or
    anything else. The rightmost hash also takes precedence, replacing
    whatever was in the left hash if a conflict occurs.

    This code was pretty much taken straight from Catalyst::Utils, and
    modified to handle more than 2 hashes at the same time.

USAGE
  Hash::Merge::Simple->merge( <hash1>, <hash2>, <hash3>, ..., <hashN> )
  Hash::Merge::Simple::merge( <hash1>, <hash2>, <hash3>, ..., <hashN> )
    Merge <hash1> through <hashN>, with the nth-most (rightmost) hash taking
    precedence.

    Returns a new hash reference representing the merge.

    NOTE: The code does not currently check for cycles, so infinite loops
    are possible:

        my $a = {};
        $a->{b} = $a;
        merge $a, $a;

    NOTE: If you want to avoid giving/receiving side effects with the merged
    result, use "clone_merge" or "dclone_merge" An example of this problem
    (thanks Uri):

        my $left = { a => { b => 2 } } ;
        my $right = { c => 4 } ;

        my $result = merge( $left, $right ) ;

        $left->{a}{b} = 3 ;
        $left->{a}{d} = 5 ;

        # $result->{a}{b} == 3 !
        # $result->{a}{d} == 5 !

  Hash::Merge::Simple->clone_merge( <hash1>, <hash2>, <hash3>, ..., <hashN> )
  Hash::Merge::Simple::clone_merge( <hash1>, <hash2>, <hash3>, ..., <hashN> )
    Perform a merge, clone the merge, and return the result

    This is useful in cases where you need to ensure that the result can be
    tweaked without fear of giving/receiving any side effects

    This method will use Clone to do the cloning

  Hash::Merge::Simple->dclone_merge( <hash1>, <hash2>, <hash3>, ..., <hashN> )
  Hash::Merge::Simple::dclone_merge( <hash1>, <hash2>, <hash3>, ..., <hashN> )
    Perform a merge, clone the merge, and return the result

    This is useful in cases where you need to ensure that the result can be
    tweaked without fear of giving/receiving any side effects

    This method will use Storable (dclone) to do the cloning

SEE ALSO
    Hash::Merge

    Catalyst::Utils

    Clone

    Storable

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
    This code was pretty much taken directly from Catalyst::Utils:

    Sebastian Riedel "sri@cpan.org"

    Yuval Kogman "nothingmuch@woobling.org"

AUTHOR
    Robert Krimen <robertkrimen@gmail.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
    This software is copyright (c) 2010 by Robert Krimen.

    This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
    the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.