note Eliya <p> I think the problem is that <c>%Bubba:: = %Hubba::</c> is creating a <i>new</i> hash, which destroys the binding of <c>$Bubba::abba</c> to the original hash set up at compile time of the latter expression.&nbsp; This reasoning is based on the observation that both of the following work fine: </p> <c> #!/usr/bin/perl use strict; $Hubba::abba = "zappa\n"; %Bubba:: = %Hubba::; # compile time deferred eval 'print $Bubba::abba'; </c> <c> #!/usr/bin/perl use strict; $Hubba::abba = "zappa\n"; # copying via hash slice doesn't create new hash @Bubba::{keys %Hubba::} = @Hubba::{keys %Hubba::}; # or: @Bubba::{keys %Hubba::} = values %Hubba::; print $Bubba::abba; </c> 977406 977452