Actually, I use push to put items in a hash all the time. Of course, it's because I want a HoA so I can detect and deal with duplicates. One of the places I use this I then go through the HoA at the end, verify that all arrays have a single member, and then convert from HoA to straight H. I suppose I could do something like this:

  @h{keys %h} = map { $_->[0] } values %h;
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In another location, I keep the arrays - I need to keep duplicate entries. Think of an XML file - each element can have multiple subelements. In my case, order between elements of different names doesn't matter, so I can put each name into a hash, and have an array of elements that all have that name as a child of the current element. (Does that even make sense?)

So, yes, I use push to populate hashes. It's not the usual way, but it's not uncommon.

(All actual examples of how I do it are removed so as not to give the OP any silly ideas to cut&paste...)

Uh, I was thinking about pushing both key and values, but yes, your solution is a viable one using push.

All actual examples of how I do it are removed so as not to give the OP any silly ideas to cut&paste...

Given the fact that the OP cannot use push, an example would be safe here :)

Flavio
perl -ple'$_=reverse' <<<ti.xittelop@oivalf

Don't fool yourself.

how I can add an element to a hash using the push function in an intuitive way

One could push the key value pairs onto an array and then construct a hash from that array (but that's just wonky, even for homework).

Something like:

{
   my @ary = %hash;
   push @ary, $k => $v;
   %hash = @ary;
}
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I suppose. But it doesn't seem much natural :) I only wondered why the teacher had to specify this strange requirement.

Update: corrected bug in snippet, thanks to QM

Flavio
perl -ple'$_=reverse' <<<ti.xittelop@oivalf

Don't fool yourself.