my @opts = ( { name => 'item1', type => '=s', dval => 'default_value1' }, { name => 'item2', type => '=s', dval => 'default_value2' }, ); my %pars = map { $opts[$_]{name} , $opts[$_]{dval} } 0..$#opts; my @args = map { $opts[$_]{name} . $opts[$_]{type} } 0..$#opts; GetOptions ( \%pars, @args ) or die "bad GetOptions $!";