Using a reference as a number produces an integer representing its storage location in memory. The only useful thing to be done with this is to compare two references numerically to see whether they refer to the same location.

It's faster than using $socket eq $server because the arguments don't need to be converted to the "blessing=type" string format first.

--
[ e d @ h a l l e y . c c ]

527>($r_ready, $w_ready, $e_ready) = IO::Select->select($read_set, $wr
+ite_set, undef, 10);
528>    foreach my $ready_socket (@$r_ready) {
529>      if( $ready_socket==$server ) {  # Incomming connection
530>        warn "Server socket ready, accepting...";
531>        my $new_connection=$server->accept();
532>        # make the socket non-blocking
533>        my $flags = fcntl($new_connection, F_GETFL, 0)
534>           or die "cannot get flags for socket: $!\n";
535>        $flags = fcntl($new_connection, F_SETFL, $flags | O_NONBLO
+CK)
536>           or die "cannot set flags for socket: $!\n";
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my $server = IO::Socket::INET->new(LocalPort => $cfg->server_port,
                   Type      => SOCK_STREAM,
                   Reuse     => 1,
                   Listen    => 10,
                  )
  or die "could not become a tcp server on port ", $cfg->server_port, 
+" : $@\n";
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That seems to be correct after some study of those modules' POD. The fact remains that $server->accept() is returning undef for failure - whatever the reason may be. Is there actually an external connection request at that point?

Makeshifts last the longest.