How do I control the variable names in Perl's Data::Dumper?

Question

I've got this simple Perl script:

#! /usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

my %foo = ( 'abc' => 1 );

print Dumper(\%foo);

It outputs:

$VAR1 = {
          'abc' => 1
        };

How do I make it output this instead?

%foo = (
         'abc' => 1
       );

Answer 1

print Data::Dumper->Dump( [ \%foo ], [ qw(*foo) ] );

The extended syntax takes two arrayrefs: one of scalars to dump, and one of names to use. If the name is prefixed by * and the corresponding scalar is an arrayref or hashref, an array or hash assignment is produced.

Answer 2

In addition to ysth's answer, you can use Ovid's Data::Dumper::Names module.

Answer 3

Also, Data::Dumper::Simple does roughly that.