Thanks, but I actually am trying to avoid using ref() if possible. Also, you are testing:

if(defined $arrayref)
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This is insufficient since $arrayref may be set to a scalar value and thus would return true. I don't want to test to see if $arrayref is simply defined, but if the array it references is defined. I use:

if(defined @$arrayref)
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as a means to distinguish the definition of an array reference from all other types of data. My question relates to whether this is valid test or not.