Passing arrays to functions in Perl

Question

I think I have misunderstood some aspects of argument passing to functions in Perl. What\'s the difference between func(\\@array) and func(@array)?

Answer 1

func(\@array) passes a reference. func(@array) passes a list (of the elements in @array). As Keith pointed out, these elements are passed by reference. However, you can make a copy inside the sub in order to pass by value.

What you are after is this:

sub func {
    my @array = @_;
}

This will pass a copy of the arguments of func to @array, which is a local variable within the scope of the subroutine.

Documentation here