Perl 5 version 8.9 documentation
ref
- ref
Returns a non-empty string if EXPR is a reference, the empty string otherwise. If EXPR is not specified,
$_
will be used. The value returned depends on the type of thing the reference is a reference to. Builtin types include:- SCALAR
- ARRAY
- HASH
- CODE
- REF
- GLOB
- LVALUE
- FORMAT
- IO
- Regexp
If the referenced object has been blessed into a package, then that package name is returned instead. You can think of
ref
as atypeof
operator.The return value
LVALUE
indicates a reference to an lvalue that is not a variable. You get this from taking the reference of function calls likepos()
orsubstr()
.The result
Regexp
indicates that the argument is a regular expression resulting fromqr//
.See also perlref.