Note that Data::Dumper typically operates on references, so you'll normally get a reference ($my_hash) rather than a hash (%my_hash) back from the eval, which other folks have pointed out is not specified correctly anyway.

Also, unless you specified the variable when saving the hashref via Data::Dumper, you'll probably need to do something like:

 my ( $my_hash );
 {
   no strict 'vars';
   $my_hash = eval $text_I_read_in;
   die "Error reading in text: $@" if ( $@ );
 }
[download]

So you can ensure that whatever variable created by the dumping procedure (usually something like $VAR1) doesn't cause use strict to have a fit. You are using use strict, right? :)