I'm trying to use the array slice mechanism. This code

  my %a=('a',1,'b',2,'c',3);
  print for @a{'a','b'};

work fine. However

  my $a={'a',1,'b',2,'c',3};
  print for @a->{'a','b'};

spits out the error message

  Can't coerce array into hash

The quick solution is, of course, to dereference the hash ref into a temporary variable before slicing:

  my $a={'a',1,'b',2,'c',3};
  my %a=%$a;
  print for @a{'a','b'};

Somehow this seems ugly. So does anyone know how I can use the arrow operator to get a hash slice directly from the reference without the need for a temporary.