use feature qw( state ); for my $q ('a'..'g') { do_something($q); print "Done computing\n" } sub do_something { my $x = $_[0]; state $FIXED_STRING = 'fixed_string'; state $persistent = {}; $persistent->{$x}{$FIXED_STRING} = rand; END { for my $k (keys %$persistent) { print "$k: $persistent->{$k}{$FIXED_STRING}\n"; } } }