>perl -wMstrict -le "my %employees; my @values = ('value1', 'value2', 'value3'); @employees{ qw(key1 key2 key3) } = @values; print qq{ @{[ %employees ]} }; my $hashref = \%employees; @{ $hashref }{ qw(key1 key3) } = qw(foo bar); print qq{ @{[ %employees ]} }; " key2 value2 key1 value1 key3 value3 key2 value2 key1 foo key3 bar