Yes (de)referencing can be a PITA sometimes but you've probably forgotten that your example code could have been better written like this: $hash1->{key1}{k

Yes (de)referencing can be a PITA sometimes but you've probably forgotten that your example code could have been better written like this: $hash1->{key1}{key2} And if `hash1` was a hash (instead of a hashref) then it's just this: $hash1{key1}{key2} The `%{}` de-reference you mention later is only when you have an operation that requires a hash, for eg: keys %{$hash1{key1}} And for kstrauser example later in Python... hash1["hash_name"]["array_name"][3] the equivalent in Perl would be... $hash1{hash_name}{array_name}[3] I find having {} & [] as lookup keys for their types is not only more explicit but also safer/correct.