use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper qw(Dumper); my $hash; { local $/; $hash = ; } $hash = eval { $hash }; print keys %$hash; # error __DATA__ $VAR1 = { 'blah.com' => [ '212.235.56.176' ], 'blah.org' => [ '212.235.56.176' ], 'www.boo.org' => [ '212.235.56.176' ], };