kudra needed to have a reference to a reference???

Maybe, maybe not. I can't make heads nor tails from kudra's posting. Some vital information, namely the code in the modules One and Two is missing. I'm not going to speculate what's going on.

For example, take the following code:

Your code produces:

Just another scalar
SCALAR(0x8191618)
[download]

But what about it? Why do you post that code. Does the result surprise you? Are you trying to make a point?

but could you explain a bit more what you meant?

What I meant was every reference is a scalar. There are no exceptions to this rule. What I also meant was that the $dbh in kudra's original post is also very likely to be a reference. Your post seem to imply that you think scalars and references are different things. So, I have two points: 1) references are scalars. 2) in both forms, a reference is passed as second argument to the news anyway.

Abigail