use Data::Dumper; $Data::Dumper::Indent=0; my @x = sort qw( 1 2 3 4 5 ); my $x = sort qw( 1 2 3 4 5 ); my $y = []; @$y = sort qw( 1 2 3 4 5 ); print Dumper(\@x, $x, $y ); __END__ $VAR1 = [ '1', '2', '3', '4', '5' ]; $VAR2 = undef; $VAR3 = [ '1', '2', '3', '4', '5' ];