The Devel::Peek module offers the functions SvREFCNT, SvREFCNT_inc, and SvREFCNT_dec, if you import them explictly. These can give you direct access to the refcount of objects.

(Note that holding a reference to something, and decrementing its refcount manually is likely to cause perl to become confused -- you can probably decrement it's refcount by cleaning up all your refrences to it instead. It looked like you may have been thinking about doing something like this from your wording.)

In reply to Re: Can you determine the number of References to a value? by wog
in thread Can you determine the number of References to a value? by shotgunefx

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