#! perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my @x = qw(Initial list of words 1);
my $y =   'Initial string 1';

show('With parentheses');
my @z = ( time() ? @x = qw(Words_z from conditional) : $y ) = foo();
print "\@z = (@z)\n";
show('After assignment to LHS');

@x = qw(Initial list of words 2);
$y =   'Initial string 2';

show('Without parentheses');
my @w =   time() ? @x = qw(Words_w from conditional) : $y   = foo();
print "\@w = (@w)\n";
show('After assignment to LHS');

sub foo
{
    if (wantarray())
    {
        print "\nfoo called in list context\n";
        return qw(sub_foo word list);
    }
    else
    {
        print "\nfoo called in scalar context\n";
        return 'String_from_foo';
    }
}

sub show
{
    my ($heading) = @_;

    print "\n$heading:\n\n";
    print "\@x = (@x)\n";
    print "\$y = '$y'\n";
}

##</code><code>##

17:35 >perl 678_SoPW.pl

With parentheses:

@x = (Initial list of words 1)
$y = 'Initial string 1'

foo called in scalar context
@z = (String_from_foo)

After assignment to LHS:

@x = (Words_z from conditional)
$y = 'Initial string 1'

Without parentheses:

@x = (Initial list of words 2)
$y = 'Initial string 2'

foo called in scalar context
@w = (String_from_foo)

After assignment to LHS:

@x = (Words_w from conditional)
$y = 'Initial string 2'

17:35 >perl -v

This is perl 5, version 18, subversion 0 (v5.18.0) built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread-64int