#! /usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use 5.020; my %data; $data{foo}{addr} = "1.2.3.4"; $data{foo}{name} = "foofoo"; $data{bar}{addr} = "9.8.7.6"; $data{bar}{name} = "barbar"; sub get_reference { my $key = shift; return $data{$key}; } my $myref = get_reference( "foo" ); say $myref->{name}, "\n", $myref->{addr}; __END__