I have read this question in the FAQ, and also looked through perldata.

I often use this for named parameters:

sub abc {
  my %param = @_;
  for my $required qw( banana nut ) {
    die "missing: $required" unless defined $param{$required};
  }
  # etc
}
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Now, what I would like to do is something like:

sub abc {
  # set up defaults
  my %param = (
      apples => 'green',
      banana => 'yellow',
    );
  # now override with any passed params
  %param = @_;
  for my $required qw( banana nut ) {
    die "missing: $required" unless defined $param{$required};
  }
  # etc
}
[download]

but the @_ assignment to %param trashes any existing values. I already know I can

  my %passed = @_;
  (@param{ keys %passed }) = values %passed;
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but is there a way to do it without an intermediate hash? i.e. straignt from @_? I want something like push that works on a hash?

Hope this makes sense! Thanks in advance,

Jeff