my $scalar = "this is a scalar"; my @array = qw( this is my array ); my %hash = ( 'this' => 'my', 'hash' => 'mine',); print_all(\$scalar, \@array, \%hash); sub print_all { my $scalar_ref = shift; my $arr_ref = shift; my $hash_ref = shift; print "Scalar: ", $$scalar_ref, "\n"; print "Array: ", join ' ', @$arr_ref, "\n"; print "Hash: ", each %$hash_ref, "\n"; }