I assume you didn't understand the explanation given in the perlsecret link. Ok, so consider:

1. Baby Cart.   An array variable may be accessed using this "canonical" (in the sense that it always works) syntax:

   @{bareword     }
   @{symbolic reference  }
   @{hard reference   }

   (A symbolic reference — sometimes casually called a "soft" reference — only works with package-global variables as used in the example below. That's one reason symbolic references are Officially Frowned Upon; for others, see symbolic references in perlref and also Why it's stupid to `use a variable as a variable name' and the perlfaq7 FAQ "How can I use a variable as a variable name?" Symbolic referencing also only works when  strict 'refs' are disabled.) The "baby cart" just goes one step further and uses an anonymous array constructor  [ ... ] to generate an array hard reference to be dereferenced. E.g.:

   c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
   "no strict 'refs';
    ;;
    our @array = qw(One Two Three);
    ;;
    my $soft_ref = 'array';
    my $hard_ref = \@array;
    ;;
    print @{ array }, '*', @{ $soft_ref }, '*', @{ $hard_ref };
    print qq/@{ array }-@{ $soft_ref }-@{ $hard_ref }/;
    ;;
    print qq/@{[ something_returning_a_list() ]}/;
    ;;
    sub something_returning_a_list { return qw(Nine Eight Seven); }
   "
   OneTwoThree*OneTwoThree*OneTwoThree
   One Two Three-One Two Three-One Two Three
   Nine Eight Seven
   [download]

   ( Update: Upon further reflection, it occurs to me that the list above of syntactic variations for canonical array access should also have included the following (similar considerations apply to the discussion of  ${ ... } scalar access below):
       @{expression }
   where expression is any expression (not a statement!) whatsoever that evaluates to a bareword, symbolic or hard reference accessing an array. I don't know of any expression other than a bareword that evaluates to a bareword (update: however, see this), and we rightly shun symbolic references, so we can move directly to hard references.

   In this light, it's easy to see that  @{ [ ... ] } is just an expression-based array access in which the  [ ... ] anonymous array constructor expression evaluates to a reference | hard reference to a zero-or-more element array. Now all you need is anything at all inside the  [ ] that creates a zero-or-more element list. In the example above, it's the  something_returning_a_list() subroutine call, but anything will do. )

2. Crab.   This is just string concatenation using the  . operator (see perlop). Scalars are stringized and concatenated together. Other data is handled in scalar context imposed by the concatenation operator. E.g.:

   c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
   "my ($x, $y, $z) = qw(Fie Foe Fum);
    my @ra = qw(foo bar baz);
    ;;
    my $s = $x . $y . $y . @ra;
    print $s;
   "
   FieFoeFoe3
   [download]

3. Reference, Deference.   The "canonical" syntax for scalar access is exactly orthogonal to that for arrays (or any other basic Perl data type):

   ${bareword     }
   ${symbolic reference  }
   ${hard reference   }

   Update: (See discussion of  @{ expression  } above):

   ${ expression      }

   The  ${ \$sftp->error } expression simply takes whatever scalar is returned by the method call  $sftp->error and takes a hard reference to it. The hard reference is then dereferenced normally, and the resulting scalar value can be used like any other scalar, e.g., in string interpolation.
4. Comma.   The  , is just the comma operator (see perlop). In list context (as imposed, e.g., by the print built-in), it separates list items: scalars, arrays, expressions evaluating to scalars or arrays, etc. In
       warn "Put failed: ", $sftp->error, "\n";
   $sftp->error is just one more scalar item in the argument list of warn.

Which way is best? That's up to you and the circumstances you face.

Update: Some  [ ] square brackets snuck in where they shouldn't have been; e.g.,  @{[ bareword ]} should have been  @{ bareword } and etc., and likewise for the  ${[bareword]} discussion. Fixed.

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.