Inside an anonymous hash or in a 'flat' list, a hash reference (or any reference) will just get stringized away if you try to use it as a hash key (unless you invoke some other magic).

>perl -wMstrict -le
"sub func {
   my %args = @_;
   print keys %args
   }
 func({ bar => 'baz' } => 'foo');
 func({ fee => 'fie' } ,  'foe');
"
HASH(0x225398)
HASH(0x225398)
[download]

Which is kinda useless if you're trying to pass this reference into a function.

Which is kinda useless if you're trying to pass this reference into a function.

Well, if you're trying to pass a reference into a function and also have it be the name of an argument, yes.

I wonder if you mean to pass a named parameter having a value that is a reference? Now, that seems to work pretty much as advertised:

>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dumper -le
"sub func {
   my %args = %{ $_[0] };
   print Dumper \%args;
   print $args{foo}->{bar};
   }
 func({ foo => { bar => 'baz' } });
"
$VAR1 = {
          'foo' => {
                     'bar' => 'baz'
                   }
        };

baz
[download]

I've no possibility to test it ATM, but I think the point is that the hash-refs are passed unchanged into the function. Your right that after my %args = @_; it will be stringified, but at least they can still be found unchanged in @_.

The crucial problem about stringified refs is that normally you have no means to tell which ref corresponds to HASH(0x225398), but in this case you have at least the possibility from within the function to search @_ (or to create a second hash) to find it out!

Cheers Rolf

But surely the point is that if you pass a reference (to whatever, and however generated) as the value of a named parameter in the  func({ foo => [ 1, 2 ] }); scheme, then there is no problem whatever.