Devel::Refcount(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Devel::Refcount(3)NAME
"Devel::Refcount" - obtain the REFCNT value of a referent
SYNOPSIS
use Devel::Refcount qw( refcount );
my $anon = [];
print "Anon ARRAY $anon has " . refcount($anon) . " reference\n";
my $otherref = $anon;
print "Anon ARRAY $anon now has " . refcount($anon) . " references\n";
DESCRIPTION
This module provides a single function which obtains the reference
count of the object being pointed to by the passed reference value.
FUNCTIONS
$count = refcount($ref)
Returns the reference count of the object being pointed to by $ref.
COMPARISON WITH SvREFCNT
This function differs from "Devel::Peek::SvREFCNT" in that SvREFCNT()
gives the reference count of the SV object itself that it is passed,
whereas refcount() gives the count of the object being pointed to. This
allows it to give the count of any referent (i.e. ARRAY, HASH, CODE,
GLOB and Regexp types) as well.
Consider the following example program:
use Devel::Peek qw( SvREFCNT );
use Devel::Refcount qw( refcount );
sub printcount
{
my $name = shift;
printf "%30s has SvREFCNT=%d, refcount=%d\n",
$name, SvREFCNT($_[0]), refcount($_[0]);
}
my $var = [];
printcount 'Initially, $var', $var;
my $othervar = $var;
printcount 'Before CODE ref, $var', $var;
printcount '$othervar', $othervar;
my $code = sub { undef $var };
printcount 'After CODE ref, $var', $var;
printcount '$othervar', $othervar;
This produces the output
Initially, $var has SvREFCNT=1, refcount=1
Before CODE ref, $var has SvREFCNT=1, refcount=2
$othervar has SvREFCNT=1, refcount=2
After CODE ref, $var has SvREFCNT=2, refcount=2
$othervar has SvREFCNT=1, refcount=2
Here, we see that SvREFCNT() counts the number of references to the SV
object passed in as the scalar value - the $var or $othervar
respectively, whereas refcount() counts the number of reference values
that point to the referent object - the anonymous ARRAY in this case.
Before the CODE reference is constructed, both $var and $othervar have
SvREFCNT() of 1, as they exist only in the current lexical pad. The
anonymous ARRAY has a refcount() of 2, because both $var and $othervar
store a reference to it.
After the CODE reference is constructed, the $var variable now has an
SvREFCNT() of 2, because it also appears in the lexical pad for the new
anonymous CODE block.
SEE ALSO
ยท Test::Refcount - assert reference counts on objects
AUTHOR
Paul Evans <leonerd@leonerd.org.uk>
perl v5.14.1 2011-06-21 Devel::Refcount(3)