But why does Dump show "a", "b", "c", "d" and not \"a", "b", "c", "d"? It seems to show an ordinary array. You don't need to dereference anything in the following basic array:

[
   "anna",
   "beth",
   "christie",
   "denise",
]

foreach my $girl (@arr) {
  print "$girl\n";
}
[download]

... and if it's a ref to an array instead of an array itself, shouldn't Dump show \... in my original post? It looks as if it's an ordinary by-value array because there's no slash in front of it to point out it's a reference.

Thanks!