your whole concept is dubious, but you may want to play around with this code 
 
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dump qw/pp dd/;
$\="\n";

my @var_list;

use vars (@var_list = qw/$s1 $s2 $s3 @a1 @a2 @a3/);


my %hash = (
    s1 => 1,
    s2 => 2,
    a1 => [1,2,3],
    a2 => [],
);

{
    no strict 'refs';
    for ( @var_list ) {
        my ($sigil,$name) = m/^([\$@])(.*)$/;
        #warn $name;

        if ($sigil eq '@') {
            *{$name} = exists $hash{$name}
                ? $hash{$name}
                : [];
        }

        if ($sigil eq '$') {
            *{$name} = exists $hash{$name}
                ? \ $hash{$name}
                : \ undef
        }
    }
    

}

#  test
for my $var ( @var_list) {
    print "--- $var";
    
    eval "print \"\$var = <$var> isn't false\" if $var";    
}

[download]

--- $s1
$s1 = <1> isn't false
--- $s2
$s2 = <2> isn't false
--- $s3
--- @a1
@a1 = <1 2 3> isn't false
--- @a2
--- @a3

[download]

please note that many things can be false in Perl, including the value 0.

So you may rather test if (defined $scalar) and if (@array) or even better if(exists $hash{name})

I don't think this will really help you, but you may learn from the code! =)

Cheers Rolf
(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery FootballPerl is like chess, only without the dice

In reply to Re: How to create variables for each hash key that has a value. by LanX
in thread How to create variables for each hash key that has a value. by Perl300

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