Test2::...are::Ref(3)

💅 NAME 💅

okay so this is Test2::...are::Ref(3) — that's the manual page name as it shows up (yes the middle got eaten by the terminal, it's really the Test2::Compare::Ref page from User Contributed Perl Documentation, and no, that's not a typo, that's just how it renders 💀). It's about ref comparison — like, comparing refs. Specifically refs. Not the stuff inside them. The ref itself. iykyk ✨

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So bestie, here's the whole vibe: this thing is used to compare two refs in a deep comparison. That's it. That's the whole job. It's giving "I have one task and I slay it" 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

okay so here's the moment, the main character entrance, the code:

my $ref = {};
my $check = Test2::Compare::Ref->new(input => $ref);

# Passes
is( [$ref], [$check], "The array contains the exact ref we want" );

# Fails, they both may be empty hashes, but we are looking for a specific
# reference.
is( [{}], [$check], "This will fail");

so real talk 👑 — the first check passes because the array literally contains the exact ref we want, the same one, no cap. The second one fails because even though {} and {} are both empty hashes and look identical from the outside, we are looking for a specific reference, and a fresh {} is not that reference. so it fails. as it should. periodt 💀✨

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🎀 SOURCE 🎀

the source code repo for Test2-Suite lives right here, go be nosy, I support it 🫶

https://github.com/Test-More/test-more/

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⭐ MAINTAINERS ⭐

• Chad Granum <exodist@cpan.org>

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💖 AUTHORS 💖

• Chad Granum <exodist@cpan.org>

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🌈 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/

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and that's the whole page bestie, mwah 💋 — this was perl v5.42.0, dated 2025-07-28, page Test2::...are::Ref(3), signing off before the terminal eats any more of the title 🎀🦋💜