I am trying to get it so that the output will look like this instead:

You'll need another layer of reference. Study the following and you'll understand, I think:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use diagnostics;
use strict;

{
    my $cache = [\Foo->new];    # Additional reference
    sub access_cache {
        return @$cache;
    }
}

# Additional dereferencing required too.

foreach (&access_cache()) {
    print "before: ", ref($$_), "\n";
    print "object: ", $$_, "\n";
    print "after:  ", ref($$_), "\n";
    print "\n";
}

foreach (&access_cache()) {
    print "before: ", ref($$_), "\n";
    print "object: ", $$_, "\n";
    print "after:  ", ref($$_), "\n";
    print "\n";
}

package Foo;
sub new {bless [], $_[0]};
use overload '""' => sub {$_[0] = Bar->new; return $_[0]->[0]};

package Bar;
sub new {bless ['barbar'], $_[0]};
use overload '""' => sub {return $_[0]->[0]};
[download]

That produces the output you are looking for.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";