You can also still touch it with a fully qualified name for the package variable:

   use strict;
   $a = 'woof';
   my $a = 'meow';
   print "lexical \$a: $a\n";
   print "package \$a: $main::a\n";
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Had you used local rather than my, then $a would have been masked in the symbol table -- $main::a would reflect the local value through the rest of the declaration scope, even by reference:

   use strict;
   $a = 'woof';
   $a_ref = \$a;
   local $a = 'meow';
   print "\$a: $a\n";
   print "package \$a: $main::a\n";
   print "ref to package \$\$a: $$a\n";
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Matt