use Data::Dumper;

my %hash = qw( foo one bar two baz three );

open  DATA, ">whatever.dat";
print DATA Dumper(\%hash);
close DATA;

my %hash2 = %{ do "whatever.dat" };
print Dumper(\%hash2);

__output__

$VAR1 = {
          'foo' => 'one',
          'baz' => 'three',
          'bar' => 'two'
        };