$ perl -wle 'sub x{};@y=x(); print "array" if @y' (nothing) $ perl -wle 'sub x{};%y=x();print "hash" if %y' (nothing) $ perl -wle 'sub x{1..3};@y=x(); print "array" if @y' array $ perl -wle 'sub x{a => 1};%y=x();print "hash" if %y' hash