You mean something like this?

use constant DEBUG => 1;

sub debug {
    return unless DEBUG;
    my $ref = shift;
    print STDERR Dumper $ref;
}

my $foo = 'foo';
my @bar = ( qw/ foo bar baz / );

debug( \$foo );
debug( \@bar );
[download]

Output:

$VAR1 = \'foo';
$VAR1 = [
          'foo',
          'bar',
          'baz'
        ];
[download]