c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dumper -le
"my $index = q{1 => 'foo',  2 => 'bar',  3 => 'baz'};
 my %hash = eval qq{ ($index) };
 print Dumper \%hash;
"
$VAR1 = {
          '1' => 'foo',
          '3' => 'baz',
          '2' => 'bar'
        };