Have you looked at fetchrow_hashref()? Each row is returned as a hash reference, where the column names are the keys and the DB column values are the values.

The only caveat is that it's not guaranteed to return a unique reference each time, so you need to copy the results; e.g.:

my $sql = "SELECT * FROM whatever";
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
$sth->execute();
my $row;
my $save_it;

while (defined($row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref()))
{
    $save_it = {};
    %$save_it = %$row;

    # Need to save each hashed row ($save_it) now too ...
}
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That example assumes you're storing all rows somewhere (saving off $save_it somehow). For a single row, do the one fetch, copy the hash and return it or whatever.