Go see Hash::Merge - as the name says, it can merge hashes :)

Hash %foo          Reference $foo to a hash

%foo               %{$foo}, %$foo
@foo{qw/foo bar/}  @{$foo}{qw/foo bar/}, @$foo{qw/foo bar/}
$foo{bar}          ${$foo}{bar}, $$foo{bar}, $foo->{bar}

(Note: $foo->{bar} notation is prefered when accessing a single value)

hth

2;0 juerd@ouranos:~$ perl -e'undef christmas'
Segmentation fault
2;139 juerd@ouranos:~$
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