As per Tillys comments, using Data::Dumper is one of the ways to go

use Data::Dumper;
use Carp;
use strict;
use warnings;

sub write_to_file {
    my ($file,$data,$small)=@_;
    open my $OUT,">$file" or croak "Error with $file:$!";

    my $dumper=Data::Dumper->new([$data],["my_dump"]);
    $dumper->Indent($small ? 0 : 2);
    print $OUT $dumper->Dump;

    close $OUT;
    return $dumper->Dump;
}

sub read_from_file {
    my $file=shift;

    local $/;
    open my $IN,"$file" or croak "Error with $file:$!";
    my $data=<$IN>;
    close $IN;

    my $my_dump;
    eval $data;
    croak "from $file I get error $@" if $@;

    return $my_dump;
}

my $test={key=>[qw(this is a list)],
          subhash=>{qw(so is this one but it must have pairs inside)}}
+;
write_to_file("test_dumper.dmp",$test);
my $var=read_from_file("test_dumper.dmp");
print Dumper($test,$var);
[download]

Of course you could use Storable, or Data::Denter or a variety of other methods depending on your needs and space/time/memory requirements. But the type of code above can be a simple way to do configuration files and other simple storage requirements.
Note that there can be security concerns doing this kind of thing with eval.

HTH

Yves
--
You are not ready to use symrefs unless you already know why they are bad. -- tadmc (CLPM)

Update I see that I must learn to type faster, or check for replys posted since I started to reply. Nice one Amoe. Or post shorter comments. :-)