I had a similar experience with Storable. Is there a big problem with simply cloning bar: %$ref = %$bar?
Alternatively, what about making $ref into a proxy for $bar:
{
package Proxy;
our $AUTOLOAD;
sub AUTOLOAD
{
my $self = shift;
my $name = $AUTOLOAD;
$name =~ s/.*://;
return if $name eq 'DESTROY';
$self->{bar}->$name(@_);
}
sub isa { (shift)->{bar}->isa(@_) }
sub can { (shift)->{bar}->can(@_) }
}
sub some_sub {
my $ref = shift;
%$ref = (bar => $bar);
bless $ref, "Proxy";
}
This code is untested, but I've had success with similar techniques. It assumes that $ref is a hash reference-type object, and that you never access the contents of the hash directly.