$ perl -MDevel::Size=total_size -E'my @a; for (1..3000*6000/10) { my $item = "1234567890"; push @a, $item; } say(total_size(\@a))' 87588692 $ perl -MDevel::Size=total_size -E'my @a; for (1..3000*6000/10) { my $item = "1234567890"; $item = 0+$item; push @a, $item; } say(total_size(\@a))' 73188692