The point everyone's trying to make to you is that you really don't want to do what you're asking how to do. It's the wrong strategy to solve your problem. You have not come up with a new "good reason" to use symbolic references. The fact is that there is a better way. I know it may be hard to believe. You're asking yourself, "Why don't they just tell me how to do it?" The fact is it's pretty easy to do what you're asking. But think of it this way: If you hang by your fingertips from a wire suspended between two skyscrapers, it's pretty easy to work your way out there onto the wire, but it's also pretty easy to lose your grip and plunge to your death. Do you really want to hang by your fingertips hundreds of feet above the hard pavement? ...I didn't think so.

Now, what you do want is real references. You can read about them in perlreftut (a tutorial on using references), perlref (full documentation on references), perldsc (Perl datastructure cookbook), and perllol (Perl lists of lists reference).

The good news is that real references will solve your problem a slightly different way, and will solve the problem while you're feet are still firmly planted on the ground, instead of dangling a thousand feet up from a high wire.