Maybe you want to see tye's References Quick Reference to see how to get at the data stored via references?

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my @output = `./retrieve 2301`;

my ($name, $status, $cid);
my $deref="LEVEL0";
my %vars = (
    'NAME' => \$name,
    'CID'  => \$cid,
    'STATUS' => \$status,
);

for my $line (@output) {
    $deref= "LEVEL1";
    my ($key, $val) = split /:/, $line, 2;

    $deref="LEVEL2";

    if ($vars{ $key }) {
        ${ $vars{ $key } } = $val;
        $deref= "LEVEL3";
    } else {
        warn "Unknown key '$key', discarded";
        $deref= "LEVEL5";
    };
};

my $hashref = \%vars;

print "\n$deref\n";
print "\n$hashref->{CID}\n";
print "\n$hashref->{NAME}\n";
print "\n$hashref->{STATUS}\n";
[download]

CID: 2301
NAME:Jane
STATUS:OK

LEVEL0

SCALAR(0x8870e78)

SCALAR(0x8870e60)

SCALAR(0x8870e30)
[download]

I don't see how your output can be produced, but maybe that's because I don't see the input. It seems to me that the output of ./retrieve does not get captured in @output. What is the printout of

#!perl -w
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

my @output = `./retrieve 2301`;
print Dumper \@output;
[download]

You are correct, it seems nothing is populated in @output variable


CID:2301 
NAME: Jane 
STATUS=OK 
$VAR1 = [];
[download]


May you please advice how i can get @output filled by ./retrieve 2301