Recently I've been learning Java, and right now im looking at how Java variables work.

For example, when you initialize a variable in Java you must first define what kind of values that variable can hold:

int i = 10;
short s = 24000;
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When you initialize a variable, Java makes a block of space in the memory for that variable knowing how much space it can hold.

But in perl, we have a "universal" variable, for example a string ($) can hold ints, strings, floats, almost anykind of data. So you can do something like this:

my $stringa = 1234;
   $stringb = "Hello";
     $stringa = $stringb; #No cast problem
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Knowing this, my question is: How does perl work with variables?

I've been thinking that when perl makes some space for a variables, it still has to keep in mind that the variable might change in size.

I tried to find some article on the web, but without success.

THANKS