qSorry if I double posted... Thanks Ikegami, your idea/solution gets me further; however, now I do not get any output. Looks like I'm still doing something wrong. below is the test code I'm using: would apreciate the extra help. Thanks again!

use warnings;
use strict;

my $COLOR=2;
my $hm="";
my $ht="";

my %h1 = (
                   "1" => "blue"
);


my %h2 = (
                   "2" => "green"
);

if ( $COLOR == 1 ) {
     $ht=\%h1;
}
elsif ( $COLOR == 2 ) {
     $ht=\%h2;
}

sub geth {

      while ((my $key, my $value) = each(%$ht)) {
          if ( $key == $COLOR ) {
              $hm=$value;
          }
      }
         print "$hm\n";
}
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