Perl | Pass By Reference

When a variable is passed by reference function operates on original data in the function. Passing by reference allows the function to change the original value of a variable. When the values of the elements in the argument arrays @_ are changed, the values of the corresponding arguments will also change. This is what passing parameters by reference does. In the example given below, when we update the elements of an array @a in subroutine sample, it also changes the value of the parameters which will be reflected in the whole program. Hence when parameters are called by reference, changing their value in the function also changes their value in the main program. Example 1: perl

#!/usr/bin/perl

# Initialising an array 'a' 
@a = (0..10); 

# Array before subroutine call
print("Values of an array before function call: = @a\n");

# calling subroutine 'sample'
sample(@a);

# Array after subroutine call
print("Values of an array after function call: = @a");

# Subroutine to represent 
# Passing by Reference
sub sample
{ 
    $_[0] = "A";

    $_[1] = "B";
}

Output:

Values of an array before function call: = 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Values of an array after function call: =  A B 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Here is how the program works:-

1. An array consisting of values from 0 to 10 is defined.
2. Further, this array is passed to the 'sample' subroutine.
3. A subroutine 'sample' is already defined. Inside this, the values of the first and second parameters are changed through the argument array @_.
4. Values of the array @a are displayed after calling the subroutine. Now the first two values of the scalar are updated to A and B respectively.

Example 2: perl

#!/usr/bin/perl

# Initializing values to scalar
# variables x and y
my $x = 10;
my $y = 20;

# Values before subroutine call
print "Before calling subroutine x = $x, y = $y \n";

# Subroutine call
sample($x, $y);
 
# Values after subroutine call
print "After calling subroutine x = $x, y = $y ";

# Subroutine sample 
sub sample
{
    $_[0] = 1;
    $_[1] = 2;
}

Output:

Before calling subroutine x = 10, y = 20 
After calling subroutine x = 1, y = 2