6 References Learning references is one of the major rites of passage in Perl. Introduced in Perl 5, references opened the way for complex data structures and object-oriented programming. References are the key to organizing data and passing it around as a unit. If you want to move to the next level in Perl, you need references. Although this chapter shows you some reference tricks, your greatest ben- efit will come from your effective creation and manipulation of data struc- tures. You'll develop those skills with practice, so don't be afraid to start using them. Item 58. Understand references and reference syntax. A reference is a scalar value. You can store a reference in a scalar variable