While I cant comment on the core dump, or any of the other weirdness discussed here, I have encountered problems when using \'scalar' with Data::Dumper and Data::Dump. For instance some dumps from either can crash on eval because of this ("Cant alter constant value..."). However there is a simple trick, replace it with the following

my $x=\do{my $x="string"};
[download]

Problem goes away... Dunno about your situation tho'.

Update it appears Zaxo has worked this out, but the above code is a viable workaround. Better imo than ($value)=($$value) if only because the resultant can be assigned to.

Yves / DeMerphq
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When to use Prototypes?