#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use Data::Dumper; my @ray=qw(bob me other); my %hash; foreach (@ray) { %{$hash{$_}}=("one", "$_+1", "two", "$_+2", "three", "$_+3") } my $ref=\%hash; $Data::Dumper::Terse=1; # remove "$VAR" in output my $r2=Dumper($ref); my $answer = eval $r2; print Dumper($answer);