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in reply to Re: The Concept of References
in thread The Concept of References

These things are often called name, container and value. Your diagram has them neatly put in columns:

Name Container Value +--------+ Alias: | $alias | ------------+ +--------+ | | \|/ +--------+ +----------+ +---------+ Variable: | $var | ----> | Variable | ----> | Content | +--------+ +----------+ +---------+ /|\ +--------+ +--------+ +----------+ | Reference: | $ref | ----> | Variable | --+ +--------+ +----------+
The "variable" label isn't accurate, though, if you also call one of the blocks "variable". And, to more clearly illustrate that an alias is absolutely not a reference, you could consider making the original name and the second name more visually equal:
+--------+ __ | $name | \ +--------+ \ +-----------+ +-------+ ====> | container | ----> | value | +--------+ / +-----------+ +-------+ | $alias | __/ +--------+
And I think the content/value part of Reference is missing in your diagram. It does have one, and that is the actual reference! Hard to draw, though.

Juerd # { site => 'juerd.nl', plp_site => 'plp.juerd.nl', do_not_use => 'spamtrap' }

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Re^3: The Concept of References
by Anonymous Monk on Apr 14, 2005 at 13:31 UTC
    I know how references work internally, but those are details not really needed to understand references and aliases. As for visually equalizing $name and $alias, I usually do the diagram interactively, in front of a blackboard, starting with the middle line of my diagram. And then I won't wipe out the $name box to draw it a bit lower (or higher).