use strict; use warnings; use Carp; use constant BAR => 3.14159265; my @list = ('p','i','e'); taster(BAR); taster(22/7); taster("constant"); taster(\@list); taster(@list); taster(scalar @list); sub taster { my $p1 = shift; carp "Hey, that's too many parameters!" if @_; print "Ref of $p1 is '".(ref $p1)."'\n"; }