I have checked out the Data::Dumper and indeed it allows to dump a hash table and it is slightly in a different structure then the dumpvalue does but I could not find how to read back a dumped file. Like dumpvalue it only goes in one direction.

use Data::Dumper;
open (STDOUT, ">whatever.dat");
print Dumper(%flexlm);
close STDOUT;
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$VAR1 = 'dataParams';
$VAR2 = {
          'license_feature' => {
                                 'val' => 'geditor'
                               },
          'total_licenses' => {
                                'val' => '15'
                              },
          'machine_names' => {
                               'parmOptions' => [
                                                  'solw0328',
                                                  'solw0082',
                                                  'vasw1006',
                                                  'lav000021453a',
                                                  'tczw5216',
                                                  'CRKW388',
                                                  'vasw1005'
                                                ]
                             },
          'user_names' => {
                            'parmOptions' => [
                                               'solwebef',
                                               'solwebef',
                                               'vaskhall',
                                               'lvlvalor',
                                               'tczrale',
                                               'crkjcree',
                                               'vasplund'
                                             ]
                          },
          'licenses_used' => {
                               'val' => 7
                             },
          'license_server' => {
                                'val' => '10.210.134.126'
                              }
        };
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I could not find how to read back a dumped file

Like so

use Data::Dumper;

my %hash = qw( foo one bar two baz three );

open  DATA, ">whatever.dat";
print DATA Dumper(\%hash);
close DATA;

my %hash2 = %{ do "whatever.dat" };
print Dumper(\%hash2);

__output__

$VAR1 = {
          'foo' => 'one',
          'baz' => 'three',
          'bar' => 'two'
        };
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For more info see the ever-magical do() function.
HTH

_________
broquaint

That it was that simple after all. This is doing the job except for one thing. If your hashtable contains a non-referenced top level it will be removed during the input using do. See sample below

Original hash table

$VAR1 = 'dataParams';
$VAR2 = {
          'license_feature' => {
                                 'val' => 'geditor'
                               },
                  };
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New hash table

$VAR1 = 'license_feature';
$VAR2 = {
          'val' => 'geditor'
        };
[download]

So it is not exactly the same but it already helps a lot.

Once you have read it in from the file and stored in a scalar, just do

my $ref = eval $data;
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