perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -MData::Dumper -le '$Data::Dumper::Sortkeys = 1; my %range = ( start => 1, end => 9, ); my %f; foreach my $i ( $range{start} .. $range{end} ) { $f{$i}++; } print Data::Dumper->Dump( [ \%f, ], [ qw( *f ) ] );'