What you wrote is same as
my %hash = qw(hi hello all bye later gone);
from man perlop
The "=>" operator is a synonym for the comma, but forces any word (consisting entirely of word characters) to its left to be interpreted as a string (as of 5.001). This includes words that might otherwise be considered a constant or function call.

In reply to Re: Doubt on hash keys by targetsmart
in thread Doubt on hash keys by velusamy

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