Perl: save hash-references in a hash for Image::ExifTool - perl

Question

Trying for two days to save all the readable (non-binary) output of ExifTool into a hash with the path to the files as key:
use strict;
use warnings;
use Image::ExifTool;
use Data::Types qw(:all);
use v5.28;
my #directories = ("/some/filepath/to-pictures");
my #suffixes = qw(jpg jpeg gif png raw svg tif tiff psd orf nef eps cr2 arw);
my %file_catalog = ();
while (my $folder = shift #directories) {
opendir(DirHandle, "$folder") or die "Cannot open $folder\n";
my #files = readdir(DirHandle);
closedir(DirHandle);
foreach my $file (#files) {
my $file_string = "$folder/$file";
if (-f $file_string) {
my $sep_pos = rindex($file, ".");
my $end_chars = -($sep_pos - (length $file) + 1);
my $suffix = substr $file, $sep_pos + 1, $end_chars;
if (grep ( lc $suffix, #suffixes)) {
my $exif_tool = new Image::ExifTool;
my $info = $exif_tool->ImageInfo($file_string);
say "Datei: $file_string";
%file_catalog = ($file_string => $info);
foreach (keys %{$info}) {
say "Key: $_ => Value: $$info{ $_ }";
}
}
}
}
}
Also not working: %file_catalog = ($file_string => %{$info});.
But I either I don't get more than one picture's information in my %file_catalog - can you explain this to me?
Or I get a lot of problems with dereferencing ("Can't use string as a HASH ref while "strict refs" in use") or storing ("Odd number of elements in hash assignment") as you can see in my repo's commit history.
Of course, not all images have the same exif-informations, every image provides different key->values.
For test output:
my $hash_size = keys %file_catalog;
print "\n---------------------------\n";
print "In 'file_catalog'-hash recorded image-path (key)-/ exif-data (value)-hashes: ", $hash_size;
print "\n---------------------------\n";
my ($i, $j) = 0;
foreach my $key (sort keys %file_catalog) {
$i++;
printf "%s. key: $key\n", uc chr($i + ord('A') - 1 );
foreach my $inner_key (keys %{$file_catalog{ $key }}) {
$j++;
say "$j. inner key: $inner_key: $file_catalog{$key}{$inner_key}";
}
}
Maybe somebody can help me understanding. Also there might be a better construct than my neophyte code.

Answer 1

To add a new key-value to a hash you need:
$file_catalog{$file_string} = $info;