#!/usr/bin/env perl use 5.012; use warnings; use Data::Dump qw/dump/; my %hash = ( some => 'original', keys => 'for reference', ); tie my %local, 'RJT::LocalHash', \%hash; $local{foo} = 'bar'; delete $local{some}; $local{keys} =~ y/e/E/; # Still uses FETCH $hash{both} = 'Operations on original hash affect both'; dump \%local; dump \%hash; #### { # tied RJT::LocalHash both => "Operations on original hash affect both", foo => "bar", keys => "for rEfErEncE", } { both => "Operations on original hash affect both", keys => "for reference", some => "original", } #### package RJT::LocalHash { use parent 'Tie::Hash'; use List::MoreUtils qw/uniq/; use Carp; sub TIEHASH { my ($class, $orig) = @_; croak 'Expected HASH ref, not `'.ref($orig)."'" unless 'HASH' eq ref $orig; bless { orig => $orig, del => { }, new => { } }, $class; } sub STORE { delete $_[0]{del}{$_[1]}; $_[0]{new}{$_[1]} = $_[2] } sub EXISTS { not exists $_[0]{del}{$_[1]} and (exists $_[0]{new}{$_[1]} or exists $_[0]{orig}{$_[1]}) } sub FETCH { return if exists $_[0]{del}{$_[1]}; exists $_[0]{new}{$_[1]} ? $_[0]{new}{$_[1]} : $_[0]{orig}{$_[1]} } sub FIRSTKEY { # Initialize the iterator as union of both hash key sets # minus anything that's been locally deleted my @each = grep { not exists $_[0]{del}{$_} } uniq keys $_[0]{orig}, keys $_[0]{new}; $_[0]{each} = \@each; shift @each; } sub NEXTKEY { shift $_[0]{each} } sub DELETE { $_[0]{del}{$_[1]} = 1; $_[0]{new}{$_[1]} // $_[0]{orig}{$_[1]}; } }