use Benchmark;

my @big_array = (1 .. 10000);

sub ret_array { return @big_array; }

sub ret_ref { return \@big_array; }

timethese(10000, {
                  'return_array' => sub { my @array = ret_array(); },
                  'return_ref'   => sub { my $array_ref = ret_ref(); }
                });

##</code><code>##

Benchmark: timing 10000 iterations of return_array, return_ref...
return_array: 120 wallclock secs (117.82 usr +  1.65 sys = 119.47 CPU)
return_ref:  0 wallclock secs ( 0.03 usr +  0.00 sys =  0.03 CPU)