Test2::Util::Ref(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Test2::Util::Ref(3)

# [NAME](#NAME)

Test2::Util::Ref - Tools for inspecting or manipulating references.

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

These are used by Test2::Tools to inspect, render, or manipulate references.

# [EXPORTS](#EXPORTS)

All exports are optional. You must specify subs to import.

$type = rtype($ref)

A normalization between Scalar::Util::reftype() and ref().

Always returns a string.

Returns 'REGEXP' for regex types

Returns '' for non-refs

Otherwise returns what Scalar::Util::reftype() returns.

$addr\_str = render\_ref($ref)

Always returns a string. For unblessed references this returns something like "SCALAR(0x...)". For blessed references it returns "My::Thing=SCALAR(0x...)". The only difference between this and $add\_str = "$thing" is that it ignores any overloading to ensure it is always the ref address.

# [SOURCE](#SOURCE)

The source code repository for Test2-Suite can be found at *https://github.com/Test-More/test-more/*.

# [MAINTAINERS](#MAINTAINERS)

[Chad Granum <exodist@cpan.org>](#Chad)

# [AUTHORS](#AUTHORS)

[Chad Granum <exodist@cpan.org>](#Chad~2)

[Kent Fredric <kentnl@cpan.org>](#Kent)

# [COPYRIGHT](#COPYRIGHT)

Copyright Chad Granum <exodist@cpan.org>.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

See *http://dev.perl.org/licenses/*

2026-10-24 perl v5.44.0

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Document: Test2::Util::Ref(3pm) from perl-test-simple 1.302226-r1 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/Test-More/test-more