c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le "my %h; @h{ qw(a b c) }; dd \%h; " Useless use of hash slice in void context at -e line 1. {} c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le "my %h; @h{ qw(a b c) } = undef; dd \%h; " { a => undef, b => undef, c => undef }