in reply to Is there a way to find out what kind of ref an object is?

the first thing that comes to mind is: 
eval { keys %$ref } ;
print "its a hash" unless $@;

[download]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Is there a way to find out what kind of ref an object is?
by ysth (Canon) on Dec 07, 2005 at 00:10 UTC 
    use overload '%{}'=>sub{{}};
sub new { bless [] }
$ref = new();
eval { keys %$ref } ;
print "is it a hash?" unless $@;

    [download]
[reply]
[d/l]
      That'd be the correct answer most of the time - if an object promises says it "can do" a hash interface, its up to everyone but the most sneaky to go by that.
[reply]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom