The easiest way to provide the variable name is with Data::Dumper::Simple, which uses a source filter. Since the variable name in question is one level higher up the call chain there aren't many options other than PadWalker, which is usually an indication that you are being a bad person.

Here is an implementation using PadWalker: 

use PadWalker qw( peek_my peek_our );
use strict;
use warnings;

sub name(\[$@%&*]) {
    for my $pad ( peek_my(1), peek_our(1)) {
        while (my ($k,$v) = each %$pad) {
            if ($v == $_[0]) {
                return $k;
            }
        }
    }
    return;
}




our $x = [0];
my @a = (1,2);
my %foo = (1 => 2);
my $subref = sub {};


printf "Name: %s\n", name($x);
printf "Name: %s\n", name(@a);
printf "Name: %s\n", name(%foo);
printf "Name: %s\n", name($subref);

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This will work for variables declared with my or our, but not for things like $::x.

Note that this will not work on older perls that do not support the (\[$@^&*]) style prototype.

In reply to Source filter or PadWalker. Both are ugly by imp
in thread How to extract the name of a variable? by Anonymous Monk

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