my %hash = ( myvar => 3, name => 'Ovid', ); print $hash{name}; #### use constant NAME => 2; print $array[NAME]; #### #!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; my @array = qw( foo bar baz ); my $var = alias_to(\@array, 1); print $var; sub alias_to { $_[0]->[$_[1]] }