Others have pointed out why this is the way it is and pointed you toward modules that will work around it, but I'd like to point out a simpler, more blindingly obvious solution: Go ahead and use the reference as your key, but also store it as a value (in addition to whatever other values you are storing).

There are two ways to do this, and which one you pick is a matter of style. You can use parallel hashes, with the same key across two or more hashes returning a related set of values, or you can use a nested hash. The latter is easier to make look similar to what you have in your code... 

%nestedhash = {
  $someref     => { ref => $someref,    val => "STUFF", },
  $anotherref  => { ref => $anotherref, val => stuff(), },
}

[download]

Though the way hashes tend to be used in the real world, you're more likely to end up with something more like this... 

  while (($ref, $val) = get_pair()) {
     my %thisrecord = { ref => $ref, val => $val };
     $record{$ref} = \%thisrecord;
  }

[download]

Personally, I tend to use parallel hashes, which accomplishes roughly the same thing in a slightly different way, like so... 

   while (($r, $v) = get_pair()) {
   $ref{$r}=$r; $val{$r}=$v;
}

[download]
sub H{$_=shift;while($_){$c=0;while(s/^2//){$c++;}s/^4//;$
v.=(' ','|','_',"\n",'\\','/')[$c]}$v}sub A{$_=shift;while
($_){$d=hex chop;for(1..4){$pl.=($d%2)?4:2;$d>>=1}}$pl}$H=
"16f6da116f6db14b4b0906c4f324";print H(A($H)) # -- jonadab

[download]

In reply to Re: using references as keys in a hash. by jonadab
in thread using references as keys in a hash. by habit_forming

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