Thanks broomduster, Storable might be better.

But I did find the solution: 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

use Data::Dumper;

my @ray=qw(bob me other);
my %hash;
foreach (@ray) {
     %{$hash{$_}}=("one", "$_+1", 
           "two", "$_+2", 
           "three", "$_+3")
}

my $ref=\%hash;
$Data::Dumper::Terse=1;  # remove "$VAR" in output
my $r2=Dumper($ref);

my $answer = eval $r2;
print Dumper($answer);

[download]

In reply to Re^2: use of eval and Data::Dumper by Anonymous Monk
in thread use of eval and Data::Dumper by Anonymous Monk

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