in reply to hashref and references

Your use of references looks fine to me. I think this line contains the actual error: 
print DATAOUT "$_"+":"+"$ref->{$_}\t";

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You're using Java syntax, not Perl. Try this instead: 
print DATAOUT $_ . ":" . $ref->{$_} . "\t";

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Unless of course you really do want to add up the strings, instead of concatenate them! :)

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It's all fine and dandy until someone has to look at the code.

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom