You can use pretty much any string as a hash key or a hash value. If you mean a string, and it contains a "-", you need to put quotes around it otherwise Perl will try to do math on it. 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

my %hash;

$hash{1-2-3} = 23;
print Dumper \%hash;

%hash=();
$hash{"1-2-3"} = 23;
print Dumper \%hash;

#$hash{HOMETOWN-HOUSTON} = 1;
#Bareword "HOMETOWN" not allowed while "strict subs" in use ..
#Bareword "HOUSTON" not allowed while "strict subs" in use ...

$hash{"HOMETOWN-HOUSTON"} = 1;  #this is ok

__END__
$VAR1 = {
          '-4' => 23
        };
$VAR1 = {
          '1-2-3' => 23
        };

[download]
show a very short example of your problem.

In reply to Re: Why are my hyphens in number strings stored as dots? by Marshall
in thread Why are my hyphens in number strings stored as dots? by greatwazzoo

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