&getItemStyle($tree, 'text', -anchor => 'w',-fg => 'red'); sub getItemStyle { my $obj = shift; ## holds $tree my $type = shift; ## holds text ## Now stringify the "-anchor =>'w' -fg => 'red' ## and make them a hash key and create the ItemStyle. ## So that next time if I call getItemStyle with same ## same parameters(-anchor and -fg ), it does not create ## the ItemStyle all over again and checks the hash if ## the paramters exist as a key then returns its value. ## Also we need to sort the parameters so that if we ## cal getItemStyle with the same two parameters and ## reverse the order of mentioning them (-fg => red , ## -anchor =>'w') , it considers it as the same call ## as (-anchor => 'w', -fg =>red) happened earlier .