Hello! I often find myself needing to input and return multiple references from a subroutine and end up writing code that takes the following form:

my %x = ("a"  => "red");
my %y = ("b"  => "green");
my %z = ("c"  => "black");

my ($ref1, $ref2, $ref3) = &modfifyHash(\%x, \%y, \%z);
%x = %{ $ref1 };
%y = %{ $ref2 };
%z = %{ $ref3 };

sub modfifyHash {
    my ($ref1, $ref2, $ref3) = @_;
    my %x = %{ $ref1 };
    my %y = %{ $ref2 };
    my %z = %{ $ref3 };
    
    $x{ "a" } = "circle";
    $y{ "b" } = "square";
    $z{ "c" } = "rectangle";
    return(\%x, \%y, \%z)
}
[download]

The, 1) create a variable to hold the reference, 2) dereference each reference, steps takes up considerable amount of space and feels like it just clutters the whole code a lot (especially when I end up doing this many times throughout a script and/or am inputing or returning many referenced variable). So I am looking for a more compact and elegant solution.... I would like to write something like:

my %x = ("a"  => "red");
my %y = ("b"  => "green");
my %z = ("c"  => "black");

(%x, %y, %z) = %{ &modfifyHash(\%x, \%y, \%z) };

sub modfifyHash {
    my (%x, %y, %z) = %{ @_ };
    $x{ "a" } = "circle";
    $y{ "b" } = "square";
    $z{ "c" } = "rectangle";
    return(\%x, \%y, \%z)
}
[download]

...but this does not produce the desired results, i.e. each input/returned hash in an individual variable. I also thought I might be able to use map in some clever way like:

my %x = ("a"  => "red");
my %y = ("b"  => "green");
my %z = ("c"  => "black");

(%x, %y, %z) = map %{ $_ }, &modfifyHash(\%x, \%y, \%z);

sub modfifyHash {
    my (%x, %y, %z) = map %{ $_ }, @_;
    $x{ "a" } = "circle";
    $y{ "b" } = "square";
    $z{ "c" } = "rectangle";
    return(\%x, \%y, \%z)
}
[download]

...but, again, this is not working as I would like. Could anyone share how they typically handle this in a better way?

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