Well, no. In both cases, you're fetching a scalar. In the second case, it's a reference to an array. I tried this expression: "($proc->{'/var'})[0]", and it's still getting a scalar, probably because that's all you ever get out of a hash.

To do what you want to do, you're going to have to explicitly tell the object what you want. Here are some ideas:

• Have two separate classes, one that returns an array ref, and one that returns scalars.
• Use some flag in the key that's fetched. For example, "$proc->{'/var'}" is the scalar and "$proc->{'/var/'}" is the array ref. You have to be careful that the flag is not something that could exist in a real filename. All that comes to my mind is "\000" and the slash.
• An ugly toggle before each call.

By the way, what you're doing reminds me of Path::Class, though it's not exactly the same thing.

Update: Another thought for you: ditch the hash interface completely. Then you can say "$proc->get_x('/var')" and "$proc->get_y('/var')" and anything else you want.