$VAR1 = { 'x' => 'cabd' }; #### #!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use Data::Dumper; my %hash = ( a => 11, b => 12, c => 13, d => 14, ); for my $key (keys %hash) { delete $hash{$_} for qw( a b c d ); $hash{'x'} .= $key; } print Dumper \%hash;