Phoenix.pm: yet another strange beast; $#$var as lvalue

[Michael Dearman]

Hi,

Ran up on this in the Perl Algorithms book.

sub insertion_merge {

	...
	my $merge;	# The merged result.

	$#$merge = @$large + @$small - 1;	# Pre-extend

and then $merge used as ref to an array?

	$merge->[ $i ];

Two questions.
1. Could someone share where any documentation on the $#$var construct?
   I know I've seen a discussion on manually pre-extending an array
   instead of relying on Perl to auto-magically do this. But don't
   remember seeing this.

2. But the real thing that gets me -
   At what point and how does $merge become a ref to an array?
   I kinda see what happens. But I'd appreciate it of someone
   could put this to words ( or lyrics :) 
   $#$merge = @$arr_1 + @$arr_2 -1;

Thanks,
Mike D.