This is mostly unrelated to Perl, but might I advise you to always avoid constructs like yours:

int *pointer;
*pointer = 12;
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This is a pretty straight call for a segfault. You actually allocate a pointer and then write to the random address (junk) contained in that pointer.

That is the kind of problem I encounter more and more frequently when reviewing the C programs coded by my students, so we should not duplicate this wrong coding style here.

rgonow