in reply to merging two fields of data into one hash or array

There are many fine templating engines out there, Template::Toolkit being the most featureful, and pleasant. There are also HTML::Template and Text::Template

Since you're not doing anything too fancy, Text::Template will most likely be enough.

you will have to split your strings into proper data structures before you pass them to the template engine, but that's not too hard.

@_=qw; ask f00li5h to appear and remain for a moment of pretend better than a lifetime;;s;;@_[map hex,split'',B204316D8C2A4516DE];;y/05/os/&print;