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in reply to Re^2: A Simple Question From A Simple Man
in thread A Simple Question From A Simple Man

No, an array reference is a scalar:

my @array = ('Matthew', 'Mark', 'Luke', 'John'); my $array_ref = \@array; my @new_array = @{ $array_ref }; print join(', ', @new_array);

Here, @array is an array, as indicated by the “@” sigil, and $array_ref is a scalar, as per the “$” sigil. The syntax @{ ... } takes an array reference (which must be a scalar), and dereferences it to get the array it references.

Here is something to meditate on: In Perl, an array can contain any number of elements, but each element must be a scalar. So, to make complex data structures (like N-dimensional arrays or arrays of hashes) you need some way of getting non-scalars (arrays or hashes) to act as scalars so they can be elements in the larger array. Which is where references come in: they are scalars which can be used to access other things, and those other things can be non-scalars.

In addition to the reading recommendations given above by other monks, you might want to check out the Monastery’s tutorial intro to references.

Hope that helps,

Athanasius <°(((><contra mundum