Any hints appreciated.

wantarray is a misnomer -- it should be wantlist. And my response is:

if (wantarray) {
  # handle scalars too!
  return $self->{$x} if not ref $self->{$x};

  # handle arrays
  return @{ $self->{$x} } if ref $self->{$x} eq 'ARRAY';

  # handle hashes
  return %{ $self->{$x} } if ref $self->{$x} eq 'HASH';

  # panic!
  die "unknown reference type (", ref($self->{$x}), ")";
}
else { return $self->{$x} }
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_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

I hate 'HASH' eq ref(...) since it doesn't consider blessed hashes to be hashes, and there are sometimes valid reasons for treating blessed hashes as hashes that don't even violate object encapsulation (for example, from inside the object's own methods).

I'd prefer:

    my $ref= $self->{x};
    return %{$ref}   if  UNIVERSAL::isa($ref,'HASH');
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See also Want.pm.

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")