my @aoh;

foreach $file (@files) {
        next if $file=~/^\./;
        print "creating hash for $file....\n";    
        my %filehash = filetohash($file);
        push @aoh,\%filehash;
        $x++;
    }

##</code><code>##


sub filetohash {
...
    return \%filehash;
}
...
    push @aoh,filetohash($file);
...