#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use warnings; my $hash_ref1 = { this => 'blarney', some => 'foo', chancy => 'at best', }; my $hash_ref2 = { this => 'that', some => 'thing', another => 'something', }; print "this is $$hash_ref2{'this'}\n"; my @a = ($hash_ref1, $hash_ref2); my $var = q{$$hash_ref{'this'} eq 'that'}; foreach my $hash_ref (@a) { if ($$hash_ref{'this'} eq 'that') { print qq{I only want to see case where: "this really does equal $$hash_ref{'this'}"\n}; } if (eval $var) { print "this really does equal $$hash_ref{'this'}\n\n"; } }