user$ cat foo2.pl my $foo = 23; my $soft = 'foo'; # soft reference my $hard = \$foo; # hard reference print "soft=$$soft, hard=$$hard\n"; user$ perl foo2.pl soft=, hard=23 user$ perl -v This is perl 5, version 14, subversion 1 (v5.14.1) built for darwin-2level user$ cat foo3.pl $foo = 23; $soft = 'foo'; # soft reference $hard = \$foo; # hard reference print "soft=$$soft, hard=$$hard\n"; user$ perl foo3.pl soft=23, hard=23