quick question on internal data structure

[Lodewijks, Jeroen]

Hi all,

I have a 2 questions about the internal representation of a hash or array.
Consider this piece of code:

1) 

sub PassHash
{
    my (%hash) = @_;

    $hash{$some_key} = 'test';
   ...
}
 
PassHash(%hash);

What happens internally? Will the whole contents of the hash be copied in memory?
Or is only a reference passed? Will the $some_key element show up after PassHash?
Does the same apply to arrays?


2) 

sub CreatHash
{
    my %hash;

    ... do something with hash;

    return %hash;
}

sub OtherProc
{
    my %new_hash = CreateHash();

    ....
}

What happens internally? Will the whole contents of the hash be copied in memory to 
%new_hash?
Or is only a reference passed? When is %hash garbage collected and when is %new_hash?
Does the same apply to arrays?

Thank you for you answers in advance. I need this information to optimise memory 
requirements for my program.

Jeroen






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