Perl6 equivalent of Perl's 'store' or 'use Storable'

How about this? OK, not as efficient as Storable but it seems to work....

#!/usr/bin/perl6
my $hash_ref = {
    array  => [1, 2, 3],
    hash   => { a => 1, b => 2 },
    scalar => 1,
};

# store
my $fh = open('dummy.txt', :w)
    or die "$!\n";
$fh.print( $hash_ref.perl );
close($fh)
    or die "$!\n";

# retrieve
$fh = open('dummy.txt', :r)
    or die "$!\n";
my $line = $fh.get;
close($fh)
    or die "$!\n";

my $new_hash_ref;
{
    use MONKEY-SEE-NO-EVAL;
    $new_hash_ref = EVAL($line)
        or die "$!\n";
}

say "OLD: $hash_ref";
say "NEW: $new_hash_ref";

exit 0;

I get this

$ perl6 dummy.pl
OLD: array      1 2 3
hash    a       1
b       2
scalar  1
NEW: array      1 2 3
hash    a       1
b       2
scalar  1

While these do not directly match Storable, there are a couple of approaches outlined at:

• http://perl6maven.com/data-serialization-with-json-in-perl6
• https://perl6advent.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/day-15-building-a-spacecraft-with-perl-6/

Another option for simple objects is to use .perl to 'store' then EVAL to 'read' ... from https://docs.perl6.org/routine/perl

> Returns a Perlish representation of the object (i.e., can usually be
> re-evaluated with EVAL to regenerate the object).

I seriously think you should move away from Storable and over to JSON. If you're using Rakudo Star as your install it includes a number of different JSON modules as part of it's core install so you don't need to add anything extra.

JSON is compatible with a number of different languages (not just Perl) and is a defined standard (unlike Storable which is backward incompatible). And JSON file sizes are of a similar size (if not smaller).

About the only plus point of Storable over JSON is handling code references. But if you're just storing data I wouldn't advise using Storable.