Array References

Of course if the arrays are big, copying them is waste of time and memory. Let's see how can we access the individual elements of an array when using a reference to that array. Then we won't have to copy them within the function.

my $names_ref = \@names;

Array      Array Reference
@names     @{ $names_ref }
$names[0]  ${ $names_ref }[0]
           $names_ref->[0]
$#names    $#$names_ref

You really don't want to use this $#$names_ref among people...