-> is the deference operator (see The Arrow Operator). It is used to resolve a value from a reference (a reference is like a pointer, see perlreftut). The lines like @entries = $mesg->entries; are using a blessed reference in an object oriented fashion to call an associated method. You can learn a bit about object oriented programming in Perl in perlboot. If any of this is unlcear, I'd be happy to answer any follow-ups.

In reply to Re: What does arrow (->) refer to? by kennethk
in thread What does arrow (->) refer to? by Anonymous Monk

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