To present the interface of a hash while not actually being a hash requires a feature called "magic". tie is a specific form of this magic, but not the only one. For example, %ENV is magical, but isn't tied.

It's possible to overload hash dereference, but I don't see how that would help here even if you were using a hash reference and not a hash.

So what's the real question?

In reply to Re: reference as key to hash by ikegami
in thread reference as key to hash by shmem

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