Perl/Basics/Variables and Data Types/Casting

Casting is the process of transitioning from one data type to another. This is typically done using curly brackets {} preceeded by a data type designator ($,%, or @).

• To cast a hash reference back to a hash:

my %hash; my $hashref = \%hash; #create the hash reference   my %casted = %{$hashref}; #Cast back to a hash.

• To cast a list of keys in a hash into an array:

my @casted = @{keys %hash};

• To cast a scalar value to an integer:

my $integer = int($scalar);