First, you're using qx (aka readpipe) instead of qr.

Second, \$refX is a reference to scalar $refX, and thus ref(\$refX) returns "SCALAR". If the value of $refX had been constructed using qr, ref($refX) would get you "Regex" since it contains a reference to a Regex.

I recommend that you use re::is_regexp instead if you're using Perl 5.10+. This will catch both references to regex patterns and a regex patterns themselves.

>perl -E"$r=qr/a/; say ref($r) eq 'Regexp' ||0"
1

>perl -E"$r=qr/a/; say ref($$r) eq 'Regexp' ||0"
0

>perl -E"$r=qr/a/; say re::is_regexp($r) ||0"
1

>perl -E"$r=qr/a/; say re::is_regexp($$r) ||0"
1
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