in reply to Re^2: Preserve array contents in for() loop
in thread Preserve array contents in for() loop

Let's say you have an array of hashes. Well, that's really an array of hash references. If you do foreach my $x (my @b = @a), what you're doing is making a copy of the hash references. So, $x = 3; won't affect @a, but $x->{foo} = 3; will affect $a[2]{foo}, if $x was aliased to the third element in @a, for instance.

A deep copy will make a copy of both @a and everything that each element in @a might have, should they be references themselves to stuff, and if that stuff is a reference, etc.

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