That's all well and good to say -- but it might help to give a little context (Oh my, what pun!) to ponder:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $scalar;
my @list;

sub foo {
    return (42, 24, 10);
}

sub bar {
    my @array = (42, 24, 10);
    return @array;
}

$scalar = foo();          # same as: $scalar = (42,24,10);
@list   = foo();          # same as: @list   = (42,24,10);
print "$scalar:@list\n";  # prints: 10:42 24 10

$scalar = bar();          # same as: $scalar = @array;
@list   = bar();          # same as: @list   = @array;
print "$scalar:@list\n";  # prints: 3:42 24 10
__END__
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