$foo = 23;
$soft = 'foo'; # soft reference
$hard = \$foo; # hard reference
print "soft=$$soft, hard=$$hard\n";

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A soft reference holds a variable's name, while a hard reference holds its memory address. When you dereference a soft reference, you search for a name in the symbol table. When you dereference a hard reference, you fetch the variable at that address.

In reply to Re^4: RFC: Tutorial: use strict; now what!? by educated_foo
in thread RFC: Tutorial: use strict; now what!? by Xiong

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