I want an anonymous scalar to which i can refer to from an unknown number of other scalars. The only thing I can come up with (I'm not that familiar with PERL, yet) is this (example code): 
$variable     = "something";
$variableRef1 = \[ $variable ]->[ 0 ];

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This makes it possible to change $variable without changing $$variableRef1 which is what I want. I want to use this in a loop where i give $variable different values but want a copy of each value, but only 1 copy and an unknown number of references to this one copy. How can I do this without constructing an anonymous array (or hash) and consume minimal time and memory?

Then later, if I change (in this example) $variableRef1 to refer to something else ($variable is also changed, so the refcount should be 0), PERL's garbage collection will free the now unused memory, right?

--
Alex

In reply to How can I create an anonymous scalar? by Anonymous Monk

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