my($foo, $bar, $baz) = qw/ one two three /; ## note the use of parens and *not* curly braces ## as they create an *anonymous hash reference* my %hash = ( key1 => $foo, key2 => $bar, key3 => $baz, ); print $hash{key1}; __output__ one #### my($foo, $bar, $baz) = qw/ one two three /; my %hash = ( key1 => \$foo, key2 => \$bar, key3 => \$baz, ); ## must dereference to get value print ${ $hash{key1} }, "\n"; $foo = 'something else'; print ${ $hash{key1} }, "\n"; __output__ one something else #### use strict; use Tie::OneOff; my($foo, $bar, $baz) = qw/ one two three /; my %hash = ( key1 => \$foo, key2 => \$bar, key3 => \$baz, ); tie my %hash2, 'Tie::OneOff' => sub { ${ $hash{$_[0]} } }; print $hash2{key1}, "\n"; $foo = 'something else'; print $hash2{key1}, "\n"; __output__ one something else