my %stages;
$stages{job_choice}->{status}->{val}="";
$stages{job_choice}->{param_gui}->{val}="job_choice_gui.pl";
$stages{input}->{status}->{val}="";

use Storable;
store \%stages, 'stages.test';
my $hashref = retrieve('stages.test'); # not good : result is a scalar
my %hashref1 = %{do retrieve('stages.test')}; # This does the job but it reports an error message.