To be clear, you are suggesting something like: 

$ref =~ /HASH/

[download]
or
$ref =~ /(^|=)HASH\b/

[download]
which checks the "stringification" of the reference. But this fails for objects that have stringification overloaded. It is better than ref(), but I still don't want to make code that breaks for such cases. I have seen cases of this, but unfortunately I don't remember where. :(

If UNIVERSAL::isa() is a pig, then an efficient replacement needs to be provided (Hmmm... that would be an easy XS to write...).

I didn't think that UNIVERSAL::isa() would search the inheritance tree since whether a blessed reference is a hash or not has nothing to do with inheritance. I hadn't looked into how isa() is implemented. You'll have to read universal.c if you are that interested. I started to and realized I don't have that much time right now.

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

In reply to RE: RE: Answer: How do I test if a by tye
in thread How do I test if a 'thing' is a hash (or array or scalar)? by Anonymous Monk

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