PERL has four types of variables distinguished by their initial character
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Scalars with $ as initial character
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File handles with nothing special as their initial characters and conventionally represented by names that are all capitalized
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Arrays with @ as the initial character
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Hashes (associative arrays, dictionaries) with % as initial character
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Arrays (for example, @fred) may be initialized with a comma-separated list of scalars
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@fred = (1, "second entry", $hw); # is an array with three entries
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Array entries can include scalar variables and more generally expressions which are evaluated when the array entry is USED not when it is DEFINED -- this is a difference from C but is for instance similar to functions in a spreadsheet
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@fred= (1, $hw . " more", $a+$b); # is an example of this
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