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

sub list {
  return qw(a b c); # real list
}

my $a_ref = [qw(a b c)];

$, = $";

print "list", @{$a_ref};
print "list", list();
print "scalar " . @{$a_ref};
print "scalar " . list();

__END__
list a b c
list a b c
scalar 3
scalar c