help building hash on-the-fly?

[McMahon, Chris]

 
Hello... 
            This is probably a very simple question, but I don't have much
experience using hashes... 
            I have a simple program that lists all of the files on a
directory: 
 
@files = </dir/*>;
foreach $file (@files) { 
            print "$file\n"; 
            }   
 
which prints something like this: 
            /dir/file1
            /dir/file2
            /dir/file3 
            etc. 
 
            But an array doesn't suit my needs.  What I really need is a
hash where each item in the directory is a value associated with a key that
is a number 1-n such that I could issue a print statement that would show
something like (to oversimplify!):
 
print "$key(%hash)  $value(%hash)\n";
 
1  /dir/file1
2  /dir/file2
3  /dir/file3 
etc.
 
            such that I could do something like this: 
 
$key = <STDIN>;  
            do something with $value associated with $key; 
 
Any clues would be welcome...
            -Chris