#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my %h;
my @cols = qw( one two three four );
@h{@cols} = ( 1 .. 4 );

assign( \( @h{ @cols } ) );
print "$_ => $h{$_}\n" foreach @cols;

sub assign {
    my $val = 0;
    foreach (@_) {
        $$_ = $val++;
    }
}