use Data::Dumper;   
   
   my %index1 = (
      1 => 'foo',
      2 => 'bar',
      3 => 'baz',
   );
   print Dumper \%index1;   #looks as expected

   my $index = q{
      1 => 'foo',
      2 => 'bar',
      3 => 'baz',
   };
   print Dumper $index;    #looks as expected

   my %index2;
   eval{ %index2 = ( $index ) };
   print Dumper \%index2;  #hash has one key ($index) and value undef

__END__