in reply to adding to hashes

if you want to decide how to deal with keys existing in both hashes, use simple foreach:
foreach my $key (keys %B) { if (exists $A{$key}) { # do something next; } $A{$key} = $B{$key}; }

     s;;Just-me-not-h-Ni-m-P-Ni-lm-I-ar-O-Ni;;tr?IerONim-?HAcker ?d;print