$ perl -e ' use Data::Dump; my %h = qw{cat Tibbles dog Rover kitten Tibbles}; my %r = reverse %h; dd \%h; dd \%r; ' { cat => "Tibbles", dog => "Rover", kitten => "Tibbles" } { Rover => "dog", Tibbles => "cat" } $ perl -e ' use Data::Dump; my %h = qw{cat Tibbles dog Rover kitten Tibbles}; my %r = reverse %h; dd \%h; dd \%r; ' { cat => "Tibbles", dog => "Rover", kitten => "Tibbles" } { Rover => "dog", Tibbles => "kitten" }