>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dumper -le "my %hash = (foo => {bar => {name => do { \(my $o = 'HiThere') }}}); ;; my $hash_ref = \%hash; print Dumper $hash_ref; ;; my $scalar_ref = $hash_ref->{foo}{bar}{name}; my $scalar = $$scalar_ref; print qq{'$scalar'}; " $VAR1 = { 'foo' => { 'bar' => { 'name' => \'HiThere' } } }; 'HiThere'