This does not make sense imo, but ref can return (at least) four different values for an (unblessed) scalar reference: SCALAR is the most common, but GLOB, REF, LVALUE can also appear: 

  DB<1> x ref(\($x=5))
0  'SCALAR'
  DB<2> x ref(\($x=\$x))
0  'REF'
  DB<3> x ref(\*x)
0  'GLOB'
  DB<5> x ref(\substr("foo",1,1))
0  'LVALUE'

[download]

Update: I didn't say why it doesn't make sense. Here's why: ref($x) can change even if $x itself does not change. Look: 

perl -we '$x = \$y; for $z ( 2, \5, *u, vec(2,1,1) ) { $y = $z; warn r
+ef($x), " ", $x; }'

[download]
And the result is: 
SCALAR SCALAR(0x813c4d0) at -e line 1.
REF REF(0x813c4d0) at -e line 1.
GLOB GLOB(0x813c4d0) at -e line 1.
SCALAR SCALAR(0x813c4d0) at -e line 1.

[download]

In reply to Re: ref == "REF" by ambrus
in thread ref == "REF" by gaal

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