It doesn't work because the scalar $dat you've declared has nothing to do with the hash %dat. Hashes and scalars (and arrays for that matter) have completely different namespaces. $a, @a, %a all can exist simultaneously and are completely disjoint from one another. You need to (re-)read perldoc perldata.

In reply to Re^2: Passing Hashes by Fletch
in thread Passing Hashes by ironcom

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