$ perl -Te 'use Devel::Peek; my $x = $ENV{PATH}; Dump $x' SV = PVMG(0x8000c8850) at 0x80008b7d8 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (GMG,SMG,POK,IsCOW,pPOK) IV = 0 NV = 0 PV = 0x80008de60 "... long list of pathnames ..."\0 CUR = 2026 LEN = 2028 COW_REFCNT = 1 MAGIC = 0x8000447c0 MG_VIRTUAL = &PL_vtbl_taint MG_TYPE = PERL_MAGIC_taint(t) MG_LEN = 1 $ perl -Te 'use Devel::Peek; my $x = q{$ENV{PATH}}; Dump $x' SV = PV(0x800004670) at 0x80008bee8 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (POK,IsCOW,pPOK) PV = 0x800090220 "$ENV{PATH}"\0 CUR = 10 LEN = 12 COW_REFCNT = 1