Trying to describe code using English leaves room for misinterpretation; using code to describe code is more discrete.

To wit:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my %my_hash = ();

my $key1 = "T::c";                      # The key has no quotation mar
+ks in it
my $key2 = '"T::c"';                    # This key does actually have 
+the quotes

$my_hash{$key1} = 'Nonquoted key';
$my_hash{$key2} = 'Quoted key';

# Show the hard-coded selection from the hash
my $test_value = $my_hash{"T::c"};
print "\$test_value = $test_value\n";

# Show the whole hash
foreach my $my_key (sort keys %my_hash) {
    print "\%my_hash{$my_key} = $my_hash{$my_key}\n";
}

exit;
[download]

Results:

S:\Steve\Dev\PerlMonks\P-2017-05-30@1228-Hash-Key-Quotes>hashkey1.pl
$test_value = Nonquoted key
%my_hash{"T::c"} = Quoted key
%my_hash{T::c} = Nonquoted key
[download]