Can I name an anonymous array in Perl?

Question

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $aref = [1, 2, 3];
my @a = @$aref;              # this line
$a[1] = 99;
print \"aref = @$aref\\n\";
print \"a = @a\\n\";
<         


        

Answer 1

1. our @array; local *array = $aref;
   

   Pros: Built-in feature since 5.6.
   Cons: Ugly. Uses a global variable, so the variable is seen by called subs.

2. use Data::Alias qw( alias );
   alias my @array = @$aref;
   

   Pros: Clean.
   Cons: This module gets broken by just about every Perl release (though it gets fixed quickly if not before the actual release).

3. use feature qw( refaliasing );
   no warnings qw( experimental::refaliasing );
   \my @array = $aref;
   

   Pros: Built-in feature.
   Cons: Requires Perl 5.22+, and even then, the feature is experimental.