Answering the 2nd half of the question, nine years late:

    # We want the true type of blessed objects like XML::DOM::Document
    my $true_type;
    if(ref($value)) {
        $true_type = scalar($value);
        $true_type =~ s/.*=(\w*).*/$1/;
        }
    print ref($value)," is really an $true_type\n";
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XML::DOM::Document is really an ARRAY
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That's ugly. It takes the scalar value of the reference, which just happens to show both the blessed type and the native type. But it works.