hacking on %main::, I printed out keys and values. The $=>*main::$ looked an ideal candidate to test out my uninformed theories about local on. When I asked scalar($main::{$}) though the string of the value of the key was returned rather than a value as I was expecting.

scalar($main::{$}), or scalar($main::{q<$>}) from cli, returned the string *main::$ which is the hash value for *main::$ and not a numeric value as I was expecting.

Is this something to do with the implicit recursiveness of the main hash?

Update: oh its scalar() behaviour. returns the scalar if it is a scalar else returns the number of items if its a list being brought into scalar context. Of course!

In reply to scalar(*main::{VALUE}) appears to return a string rather than a value? by Don Coyote

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