c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"use Data::Dump qw(dd);
 ;;
 print 'perl version: ', $];
 ;;
 init($_) for \my ($scalar, @ra, %ha);
 dd $scalar, \@ra, \%ha;
 ;;
 sub init {
   my ($r) = @_;
   ;;
   return
     'ARRAY'  eq ref $r ? @$r = (9, 8, 7)                 :
     'HASH'   eq ref $r ? %$r = qw(one 1  two 2  three 3) :
     'SCALAR' eq ref $r ? $$r = 42                        :
     die qq{unknown ref type: '$r'}
     ;
   }
"
perl version: 5.008009
(42, [9, 8, 7], { one => 1, three => 3, two => 2 })