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in reply to Re: Perl cheat sheet
in thread Perl cheat sheet

Just to make sure that I'm reading this correctly. This is saying, "if $foo is a scalar value, don't try to expand it as an array reference." Is that correct?

Not really. It's saying: "Do not use symbolic references."

With $foo = 'bar'; $$foo = 'xyzzy';, xyzzy is assigned to $bar. Of course, strict does not allow symbolic references (although you can of course use no strict 'refs';. The entry in the cheat sheet is just a reminder for newbies, who generally don't know the term "symbolic reference" and do use Perl like this. It's the kind of newbie that hasn't discovered hashes yet.

So what I'm really saying is: "If $foo is a scalar value, don't use it as a reference." This is not only for arrays.

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