I think that your second assignment is not doing what you expect:

$test = (
test1 => '1',
test2 => '2',
test3 => '3');
[download]

This assigns the last value in the list to $test. Later, when you dereference it, treating it like a reference to a hash, you end up with an empty hash. Probably you meant to do this instead:

$test = {
test1 => '1',
test2 => '2',
test3 => '3'};
[download]

The curly braces give you a reference to a hash. This should give you the expected result.
-JonathanU