IlyaM has said how to do it right, so I figured I will say how to do it wrong. :)

This is bad, ugly, and deprecated*, but it works:   %#->{foo} If you want to stay legal you can do it semi-direct:   (\%#)->{foo} While on the theme of references:

  no strict 'refs';
  '#'->{foo}
[download]

which will work since %# can't be private.

But don't do any of the above.

ihb

* It's labeled as a "known problem" in perl561delta, but in perl580delta it's called deprecated.