FYI if someone is describing what they want to do, and it looks like they want symbolic references, I would strongly recommend warning them away from them into a different course of action.

The standard article I refer them to for this is Avoid symbolic variables, and I tell them to read all three parts. (The third in particular has a very nice statement of why safe programming practices matter.) And then I suggest strict.pm to them.,,

In reply to Re (tilly) 2: need to increment a $scalar while inside for loop by tilly
in thread need to increment a $scalar while inside for loop by Anonymous Monk

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