Your code would have worked if you had used a comma (list separator) to keep the hash in list context rather than the dot (concatenate) which used it in scalar context. As an aside, you can't interpolate a hash into a double-quoted string as you can with an array. However, you can get around that using the @{[ ... ]} construct; I think some call it the babycart operator.

$ perl -le '
> %hash = ( key1 => q{val1}, key2 => q{val2} );
> print qq{Scalar: }, scalar %hash;
> print qq{List: }, %hash;
> print qq{Interpolate: %hash};
> print qq{Interpolate in \@{[...]}: @{ [ %hash ] }};'
Scalar: 2/8
List: key2val2key1val1
Interpolate: %hash
Interpolate in @{[...]}: key2 val2 key1 val1
$
[download]

Cheers,

JohnGG