Reading to a hash

[mark crowe (JIC)]

I wonder if anyone can help me with a question based more on curosity than a
desperate need to know. Say I have a data file with one key/value pair on
each line, which I want to read into a hash. I've been doing it in one of
two ways:

  while (<>) {
    ($key, $value) = split;
    $hash{$key} = $value;
  }

or 

  push @array, split while <>;
  %hash = @array;

What I'm wondering is if there is anything like:
  push %hash, split while <>; # which doesn't work, or
  %hash = split while <>; # but that overwrites all but the last pair.

Thanks

Mark C
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Dr Mark Crowe                           John Innes Centre
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