Re: How do I access an array for which I only have a reference?

[chromatic]

You dereference the array reference.

For example, given

my @array = ( 'one', 'two', 'buckle my shoe', );

my $array_ref = \@array;

then you can access the array to which $array_ref refers by prefixing a @ to it, e.g.:

for ( @$array_ref ) {
    ...
}

The @ symbol is essentially an array dereference operator. It can dereference any value which is an array reference, whether that value is in a variable (e.g. $array_ref) or is the result of some more complex expression. The general syntax is @{ ... }; but you can omit the curlies when the expression is a simple scalar variable holding an array ref.

To access elements of an array to which you have a reference, insert an arrow between the array ref and the square brackets used for indexing, e.g.

print "The third element is $array_ref->[2] \n";

Reference types are strictly checked by the interpreter; you can't dereference an array ref as a hash, for example.

print keys %{ $array_ref };     # fatal!

The error message I get is "Can't coerce array into hash at - line ..."