BTW: Your testcode can be simplified also:

my $maxind = 10;
print "maxind=$maxind\n";

for my $rstr ( qw[ x  1-2-3 0 10 11 4 4-6 7- -2 -10 -11 -0 10- 11- ] )
+ {
    my @ret = eval{ range_to_list( $maxind, $rstr ) };
    print "rstr:$rstr:", $@ ? "...exc:$@" : "...ret:@ret:";
}

my @apples = qw[ :zero: :one: :two: :three: :four: ];
print "apples ", @apples[range_to_list( $#apples, "1-3" )], "\n";
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