in reply to unreadable hash keys

Don't re-invent the wheel and look at modules such as YAML or JSON to save (and load) your hashes (and other data) into a human-readable format.

CountZero

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom