Once the @fields array is declared inside the loop, you can safely destroy it: 
while ( my $line = <DATA> ) {
    chomp $line;
    my @fields = qw( login      uid   gid       name           home   
+   shell );
    my @items  =
        $line =~ /^([\-\w]+):x:(\d+):(\d+):([\-\w\s\(\)\,]*):([\w\/]+)
+:([\w\/]+)$/
            or die "Malformed input [$line]";

    push @users, {};
    $users[-1]{ shift @fields } = shift @items while @fields;
}

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لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ

In reply to Re: Getting rid of a temporary variable in AoH by choroba
in thread Getting rid of a temporary variable in AoH by reisinge

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