All hash keys are strings; so if you put an object (or any other reference) as the key in a hash, it will be a string in that hash. Example:

use strict;

my $x = "foo";
my $y = \$x;
my %foo = ($y => "bar");
for (keys %foo) { print $$_ };  # hoping to print 'foo'
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That code dies saying "can't use string 'SCALAR(0x...)' as scalar reference..." or something like that. A solution is to keep two hashes.

my %foo = ($y => "bar");
my %refs = ($y => $y);
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Now you can access $refs{$_} to get at the REAL reference.

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Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a (from-home) job
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;