use Storable qw(store retrieve freeze thaw dclone); %color = ('Blue' => 0.1, 'Red' => 0.8, 'Black' => 0, 'White' => 1); store(\%color, 'mycolors') or die "Can't store %a in mycolors!\n"; $colref = retrieve('mycolors'); die "Unable to retrieve from mycolors!\n" unless defined $colref; printf "Blue is still %lf\n", $colref->{'Blue'};