References may point to anonymous lists by using the [ ] delimiters as a list constructor $myListReference = [ 1, 2, [ 'a', 'b', 'c' ] ]; print $$myListReference[1], "\n"; print @{$$myListReference[2]}, "\n"; References may point to anonymous associative arrays by using the { } delimiters and the => operator $myHashReference = { 'a' => "ape", 'b' => "bat" }; print $$myHashReference{'a'}, "\n";