An interpolated reference is just a string. There is no way to change it back to a real reference (well... you could probably hack around with XS or Inline::C) and if it was the last reference to an object the object will get lost.

The only problem I have with that is why you would do something like this anyway:

my $ref = Object->new();
$ref = "$ref";   # overwrite $ref: destroy object
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Is there any use for this? If you really want a stringified reference, you can always make a copy (ie:)

my $ref = Object->new();
my $refstring = "$ref";  # keep object in $ref
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Update: Just a reminder: you can not restore a pointer to a destroyed object without serious memory leeks / core dumps and other unpleasantness, so IF the object is still in memory, you still have another reference laying about somewhere - then you CAN get your reference back.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use vars qw($ref);

$ref = [1,2,3,4];
print join(',',@$ref)."\n";

my $string = "$ref";
#print join(',',@$string)."\n";  # this does not work

my $getref = unstringify($string) || die "Cannot find ref!";
print join(',',@$getref)."\n";

sub unstringify {
    # works only on globals in package main !
    # but you could also use another hash 
    # ( instead of %main:: )
    my $string = shift;
    for (keys %{main::}) {
        my $value;
        next unless $value = ${${main::}{$_}};
        next unless ref($value);
        next unless $value eq $string;  # implicit stringification
        return $value;
    }
    return;
}
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This is ofcourse a terribly hack, you'd be a lot better of if you store your references somewhere where you can retrieve them easier.

-- 
Joost       downtime n. The period during which a system
            is error-free and immune from user input.
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