Oh, right. I knew about autovivification already, but since @array = @{ $hash{key} } (when %hash is empty) is an error under strict I thought that push @{ $hash{key} }, 'value' would be too. But I forgot that Perl is smarter than me.

I'm working on v5.8.3 here, so I can't test that right now, but I suppose that in the case of mypush(+@) you'd still get an error.

Thanks for correcting me :) (Edit: as in making me learn a bit about Perl)

Edit: oh wait, I don't need the + prototype to try that (I guess someone's tired, and that someone is sitting on my very chair):

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;
sub mypush(\@@) { push @{ shift; }, @_ }
my %hash;
mypush @{ $hash{key} }, "Hello", "World";
print Dumper \%hash;
[download]

$VAR1 = {
          'key' => [
                     'Hello',
                     'World'
                   ]
        };
[download]

So it works alright. I really should trust Perl more. Edit: The linux computer to which I'm connected via SSH uses v5.14.2. It works just fine with + as well.