Tested on Windows 98, ActiveState Perl 5.6, Build 630:

#!perl -w
use strict;

my @array = qw(a b c d e f g);

my $ref = \@array;

print @$ref;
[download]

The above prints out "abcdefg". What you are doing is effectively de-referencing the variable. You might also want to read up on perlref

UPDATE:Corrected the shebang line. Thanks wog for pointing that out.

TStanley
--------
"Suppose you were an idiot... And suppose you were a
member of Congress... But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain