$ perl -le' use Data::Dumper; $Data::Dumper::Useqq = 1; my %h1; $h1{(1, 1)} = 17; $h1{(2, 2)} = 19; $h1{("", 22)} = 23; $h1{(22, "")} = 22; my @h = (3, 4, 5); $h1{(@h)} = 44; print Dumper(\%h1); ' $VAR1 = { "2\0342" => 19, "1\0341" => 17, "\03422" => 23, "22\34" => 22, "3" => 44 };