I'm kind of a newbie, but, I've read all the docs, I've written machine language interfacing to Fortran and C. I've written a simple interpreter in Fortran and again in C.
And I stll cannot figure out if Perl passes by value or by reference. An eariler posting talks about "implicit" reference. There is no such thing as implicit at the code level. The docs talk about "turning call-by-reference
into call-by-value", hugh, how can this be?
Either Perl pushes the value of args (be they scalors or arrays) onto a stack (ie, copies the whole thingy), or it pushes a pointer to the item onto the stack. There is NO OTHER WAY.
What is the truth? Why do Perl docs seem so confusing, even uncertain? Can someone explain clearly in a few words?
Thanks.