You can use ${ func() }: 
use Data::Dump 'pp'; # for display purposes only
my %datfield;
my $text = "some stuff";
$datfield{"text"} = ${ gettext($text) };

pp \%datfield;

sub gettext {
    my $text = shift;
    return \$text;
}
__END__
{ text => "some stuff" }

[download]

Update: s/Date/Data/. Thanks oko1

Unless I state otherwise, all my code runs with strict and warnings

In reply to Re: dereferencing values returned from functions by FunkyMonk
in thread dereferencing values returned from functions by chuckd

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