perl -Mstrict -MData::Dumper -we ' package Test; sub new { my $class = shift; my $stuff = {}; bless $stuff, $class; return $stuff; } package Main; my $t = [ Test->new("foo"), Test->new("bar"), Test->new("baz"), ]; print "Ref: " . ref($t) . "\n"; print Data::Dumper->Dump([$t]) . "\n"; ' __output__ Ref: ARRAY $VAR1 = [ bless( {}, 'Test' ), bless( {}, 'Test' ), bless( {}, 'Test' ) ];