The Data::Dumper->Dump() (and ->Dumpxs(), identical functionality but implemented in C so faster) methods can provide more readable output as they allow you to name your variables and allow you to show that a hash really is a hash, not a hash reference. Here are a couple of examples showing the differences as applied to a hash and a hash reference.

use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper;

my %hash = (
   name => q{Fred},
   age  => 27,
   );

print q{-} x 30, qq{\n};

print Dumper( %hash );
print q{-} x 30, qq{\n};

print Dumper( \ %hash );
print q{-} x 30, qq{\n};

print Data::Dumper->Dump( [ \ %hash ], [ qw{ *hash } ] );
print q{=} x 30, qq{\n};

my $hashRef = {
   name => q{Mary},
   age  => 25,
   };

print Dumper( $hashRef );
print q{-} x 30, qq{\n};

print Data::Dumper->Dump( [ $hashRef ], [ qw{ hashRef } ] );
print q{-} x 30, qq{\n};
[download]

Here is the output.

------------------------------
$VAR1 = 'name';
$VAR2 = 'Fred';
$VAR3 = 'age';
$VAR4 = 27;
------------------------------
$VAR1 = {
          'name' => 'Fred',
          'age' => 27
        };
------------------------------
%hash = (
          'name' => 'Fred',
          'age' => 27
        );
==============================
$VAR1 = {
          'name' => 'Mary',
          'age' => 25
        };
------------------------------
$hashRef = {
             'name' => 'Mary',
             'age' => 25
           };
------------------------------
[download]

I hope this is helpful.

Cheers,

JohnGG

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