Data::Dumper does everything that you're trying to achieve:

use Data::Dumper;

my %users = ( me => 1, you => 2, others => 3 );

#dump hash to file

open my $file, ">", "temp~" or die $!;
print $file Dumper \%users;
close $file;

#read hash data from file

open $file, "<", "temp~" or die $!;
my $hash_data = do { local $/; <$file> };
close $file;

#eval it into %hash

my %hash = do { no strict 'vars'; %{ eval $hash_data } };

print Dumper \%hash;
[download]

Output:

$VAR1 = {
          'you' => 2,
          'others' => 3,
          'me' => 1
        };
[download]

Have a good look at Data::Dumper. Other people have other favorites, but I think it's the third most useful module there is. strict and warnings being the top two, of course.

update: s/my $VAR1/no strict 'vars'/

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