Ok, so this works, that's how I got confused. My previous usages had been with package vars. So this works for a limited case of the vars being package vars, but I don't see how you would do the same with has or real references, without having to pass both the string name of the array and the really reference to the array. The hash example -- not sure what you are referring to, specifically. 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my ($Devel, $Debuff_Output) = (1,1);
if ($Debuff_Output) { select STDERR; $| = 1; select STDOUT; $| = 1; }
if ($Devel) { use Carp qw(cluck confess);
    $SIG{__WARN__} = $SIG{__DIE__} = sub {confess @_} }


our @array        = (1, 2, 3, 4);
our @array2    =    (3, 5, 7);

sub arlen ($) {
    my $ar_nam=$_[0];
    no strict 'refs';
    my $ar_len = @$ar_nam;
    sprintf "name=%s, length=%d", $ar_nam, $ar_len;
}

foreach ('array', 'array2') {
    no strict 'refs';
    printf "Array %s\n", arlen $_;
}

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In reply to Re^2: simple symbolic reference Q by perl-diddler
in thread simple symbolic reference Q by perl-diddler

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