Perl has four fundamentaldata types: scalars, lists, hashes, and typeglobs.
- scalar
- is a funny way of saying a single value; it may be a number, a string, or areference.
- list
- is an ordered collection of scalars. A variable that holds a list is called anarray. Items in a list or array can be accessed by their position in the list; programs can retrieve the first, second, third, etc. item in a list.
- hash
- is like an array, in that a hash holds many values, but the values are identified by a unique "key", rather than an ordinal index position.
- typeglob
- is a variable representing an entry within the internal symbol table. It is used to manipulate file handles, and to create references or aliases.
All variables are marked by a leadingsigil, which identifies the data type.The same name may be used for variables of different types, without conflict.
$foo# a scalar@foo# a list%foo# a hash*foo# a typeglob
