Quoth Rolf:
The OP is using a function which is not standard indenting, hitting TAB is.°

I quite categorically am using the standard indenting of cperl-mode. Copy the original example into a file called, say "test.pl", then edit with emacs -Q test.pl, and take the following sequence of instructions: 

M-X cperl-mode
C-SPC
M->
M-C-\

[download]
gives me (copy-pasting from Emacs window): 
my @headings = (
        {
         key => 'k', name => 'Kanji', class => 'kanji'},
        {
         key => 'skip', name => 'SKIP', class => 'skip-code'},
        {
         key => 'co', name => 'Suggestion', class => 'skip-code'},
        {
         key => 'disc', name => 'Discussion'},
           );

[download]

The version of Emacs I am using is as follows: 

GNU Emacs 27.1 (build 1, i386-portbld-freebsd12.1, GTK+ Version 3.24.2
+4, cairo version 1.16.0)
Copyright (C) 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

[download]

The cperl-mode is the default supplied with the above.

In reply to Re^7: How would you indent this? by no longer just digit
in thread How would you indent this? by no longer just digit

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