Perl Template Toolkit: Can you access hash keys that have hyphenated names?

Question

Perl Template Toolkit

Accessing Hyphenated Hashtable Keys

Question

Can you access hash keys that have hyphenated names?

For example, if you declare the following hashref in Perl:

$hashref = {
    'regularKey' => 1,
    'hyphenated-key' => 1,
};

And then try to access the entries via the Template Toolkit:

1. [% hashref.regularKey %] # Okay
2. [% hashref.hyphenated-key %] # Generates error

The error reads:

Argument "" isn't numeric in subtraction (-) at myTemplatizedFile line 2.

Is there a way to get around the toolkit's assumption that the hyphens are for subtraction?

What I Tried

I tried escaping the hyphens with backslashes, but it generates this error when processing the template:

error - parse error - myTemplatizedFile line 138: unexpected token (\)

Backup Plan

I see two options to work around the issue:

1. Change the keys to remove the hyphens.
2. Create another hashref through which to access the hyphenated names, which repackages the names without hyphens. E.g.:

Add in Perl:

$intermediateHashref = {
    'unhyphenatedKey' => $hashref->{'hyphenated-key'},
}

Change templated file:

1. [% hashref.regularKey %] # Okay
2. [% intermediateHashref.unhyphenatedKey %] # Okay