if (wantarray) {
  # handle scalars too!
  return $self->{$x} if not ref $self->{$x};

  # handle arrays
  return @{ $self->{$x} } if ref $self->{$x} eq 'ARRAY';

  # handle hashes
  return %{ $self->{$x} } if ref $self->{$x} eq 'HASH';

  # panic!
  die "unknown reference type (", ref($self->{$x}), ")";
}
else { return $self->{$x} }
[download]

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

I hate 'HASH' eq ref(...) since it doesn't consider blessed hashes to be hashes, and there are sometimes valid reasons for treating blessed hashes as hashes that don't even violate object encapsulation (for example, from inside the object's own methods).

I'd prefer:

    my $ref= $self->{x};
    return %{$ref}   if  UNIVERSAL::isa($ref,'HASH');
[download]

See also Want.pm.

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

Perhaps ref() should return an overloaded string that returns true when compared to both the underlying reference type and the class owning the object?

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;