It'd be easier for you to write a little bit of XS and allocate your SV, replace SvANY(your_sv) with AvARRAY(your_av). Now you've got to prevent perl from wanting to ever deallocate either object before you can undo your muckery. The array at AvARRAY(your_av) could now get freed twice and the original buffer at SvANY(your_sv) might never be freed. B is just a little bit of sugar over XS so you'd really be better off just checking that out. Visit perlapi and the various *v.h files in your distribution.