You did get a reference (not a hash), but you did pass a reference (not a hash).

Anyway, you can use

use experimental qw( refaliasing declared_refs );

my \%foo = retrieve( ... );
[download]

instead of

my \%foo = retrieve( ... );
[download]

This gives you the returned hash itself, instead of copying the returned hash into a new hash. It's faster, and it maintains reference cycles.

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Oops, I missed that someone had mentioned this.