sub another_func {
  my $ref = CreateRef();
  # do things with $ref
  return 1;
  # $ref goes out of scope here and so we lose our last
  # reference to the hash and it is freed.
}

sub CreateRef {
  my %some_hash = ('foo' => 'bar');
  return \%some_hash;
  # We lose the 'some_hash' name reference to
  # the 'some_hash' data, but we have created another
  # reference (the return value) so the data lives...
}