my %hash;
 my @items;

 #... some code missing here, generally I'm just populating the @items list
 #with $currentitem items

 while (<FILE>) { #read the file

         ($a, $b) = split(/s+/,$_,-1);
         $hash{$currentitem} => {$a => $b};
         print $hash{$currentitem}{$a} . "n";#this is a test and it works
}

@test = keys %hash{ $items[$num] };

while ( ($key, $value) = each( $hash{$items[$num]} ) ) {

      print "$key, $valuen";
 }

$host{ "$currentcustomer" }{"$a"} => "$b";

$hash{$currentitem} => {$a => $b};

$hash{$currentitem}{$a} = $b;

keys %{ $hash{ $items[$num] } };

keys %{ $expr_producing_hash_ref };

keys %{ $hash{$items[$num]} };