# call the sub my_sub(userid => 'foo', password => 'bar'); sub my_sub { my %default_values = (userid => 'user', password => 'passwd'); my %param = (%default_values, @_); print $param{userid}, $/; print $param{password}, $/; # ... } # or with all required arguments sub my_sub { my @required = qw/userid password/; my %param = @_; for my $req (@required) { die "Subroutine my_sub called without required parameter: $req" unless exists $param{$req}; } print $param{userid}, $/; print $param{password}, $/; # ... }