Why do Perl variables need to start with $, %,@ (sigils)?

Question

Why do Perl variables need to start with different characters (sigils)?

• Scalar variables start with $

• Hashes start with %

• Arrays start with @

Why are they like this?

Answer 1

When I started out using Perl it was explained to me that these characters were chosen because:

• $ looked a bit like an 's' so that was for scalars,
• @ has an 'a' in the middle so that was for arrays, and
• % was for hashes because it looked like a key-value pair divided by a slash.