Another difference between Perl's references and pointers ala C, is that a reference knows what it refers to. It knows what kind of reference it is. It's not just a reference, but an array reference or a hash reference, etc.

Update: my lack of C knowledge should be self-evident. Thanks to frodo72 for explaining why I'm wrong.

One could argue that a pointer in C, e.g. to a struct tm, knows what it points to, so that you can write:

  struct tm *p = &data;
  localtime(p);
  printf("Year: %d\n", p->tm_year);
[download]

which, assuming you have a hash filled with the very same parameters, resembles $p->{'tm_year'} very much.

Flavio (perl -e "print(scalar(reverse('ti.xittelop@oivalf')))")

Don't fool yourself.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the pointer itself doesn't know whether it's a pointer to a struct, or anything else. The pointer just points to a spot of memory. It's the syntax that you use that determines how the memory gets used.

Perl's references, on the other hand, know what they're referring to. If you try to use a hash reference as an array reference, perl can look at the reference type and say, "wait a minute, that's not an array reference!"

I don't know how much difference this makes in terms of usage, but it's certainly a difference between the two constructs.

One could argue that a pointer in C, e.g. to a struct tm, knows what it points to

In C the programmer tells the pointer what it points to. In Perl the reference knows what it points to. It's an important if subtle difference.