Here's 2 approaches that may get you what you want. 1 is to ref() the variable, and it will tell you something about the object.

    my $what_is_it = ref($unidentified_object);
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This may not return what you expect though, because most objects are of more than 1 type (they are whatever they were last bless()'ed as, and all of their parent class types). Someone else can certainly better explain exactly what ref() will return in various circumstances.

A probably better options is to use UNIVERSAL::isa(), which all classes inherit. isa() allows you to ask an object if its a certain type:

   if ( $u_o->isa("blah" ) ) {
       # do something
   }
   elsif ( $u_o->isa("something_else") ) {
       # do something else
   }
   ...
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Depending on what you're trying to do, one or the other should probably do what you need.