You can test ref using eq. Try this, for example: 
perl -le '$foo{"bar"} = ["a","b"]; print ref $foo{"bar"}'

[download]
... prints "ARRAY". But if for some reason you're testing the stringification of an array reference (not the return value of ref), then you shouldn't use eq.

What are you expecting to see in your output? Hashes are not interpolated into strings, but arrays are, so printing "Array in Array item: @$item" should print the array elements in $item. A clearer way would be a foreach loop or map, perhaps like this: 

    if (ref $item eq 'ARRAY') {
        print "Array in Array item:\n";
        foreach (@$item) {
            print "    $_\n";
        }
    }
    elsif (ref $item eq 'HASH') {
        print "Hash in Array item:\n";
        foreach (keys %$item) {
            print "    $_ -> $item->{$_}\n";
        }
    }
    else {
        print "Array Item: $item\n";
    }

[download]

-- Mike

--
just,my${.02}

In reply to Re: Re: Re: A hash of an array containing hashes & arrays by thelenm
in thread A hash of an array containing hashes & arrays by ebodine

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