in reply to user defined variable as hash key index

Additionally from FunkyMonk's answer, you may also want to put some checking to see if supplied name doesn't exist in %numbers to avoid unitialized warning.
print "Who's number are you looking for? : \n"; chomp(my $who = <STDIN>); my $number = $numbers{$who} || 'unknown'; print "$who number is $number\n";

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