my $hashref = { 'key' => 'value' }; my $sum1 = 0; $sum1 += length for %$hashref; # - or - my $sum2 = length join '', %$hashref; # - or - use List::Util qw/sum/; my $sum3 = sum map {length} %$hashref; #### my $sum4 = 0; while ( my ($k, $v) = each %$hashref ) { $sum4 += length($k) + length($v) }