use strict; my $val = 'A'; my $vars = { 'test' => $val }; reftest('testing', $vars); sub reftest { my ($value, %vars) = @_; print "$value\n"; print $$vars{'test'}."\n"; } C:\Users\ian\Perl>perl dereference.pl testing A #### my $vars = { 'testpage' => $data{'testpage'} }; $html->process('index', $vars); #### sub process { my ($self, $disp, %v) = @_; my $testpage = $$v{'testpage'}; print "

".$testpage."

\n"; }