[Melbourne-pm] Weirdness with references

[Scott Penrose]

Very odd...

A quick note to anyone who tries this - it actually on dies if you  
"use strict";

>     my %empty;
>     print %{ $empty{'fake'} }

Yep - makes sense, you can't use an undef or nothing as a hashref -  
must be a real hashref.

>     my %empty;
>     print values %{ $empty{'fake'} }

Nope - makes no sense

But here is my fav !

THIS WORKS

	use warnings;
	use strict;
	my %empty;
	print values %{ $empty{'fake'} };
	print %{ $empty{'fake'} };

THIS FAILS

	use warnings;
	use strict;
	my %empty;
	print %{ $empty{'fake'} };
	print values %{ $empty{'fake'} };

so then try this...

	use warnings;
	use strict;
	use Data::Dumper;
	my %empty;
	print Dumper(\%empty);
	print values %{ $empty{'fake'} };
	print Dumper(\%empty);
	print %{ $empty{'fake'} };

And you see what is happening !

	$VAR1 = {};
	$VAR1 = {
        	   'fake' => {}
         };

So the "values" sort of "forces" it to be a hashref - I guess that in  
that case it returns an lvalue or similar and as values must be on a  
hash it makes it so... maybe?

Scott
-- 
* - *  http://www.osdc.com.au - Open Source Developers Conference * - *
Scott Penrose
Anthropomorphic Personification Expert
http://search.cpan.org/search?author=SCOTT
scott at cpan.org

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