http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=1001376


in reply to Re: Wrong dereference => Out of memory
in thread Wrong dereference => Out of memory

It looks like pseudo-hashes to me?

My best guess is that $a->{test} out-of-memories because there are two test fields, which is not supposed to happen in pseudo-hashes because... uh... everybody's super extra careful all the time, right?

Anyway, they were promptly deprecated and then removed by 5.10.0, so that would be why you get a normal error message and the OP doesn't.

EDIT: an Anonymous Monk explains the same thing with many more details a couple posts down.