Almost right!

sub makeSql {
  my @xpid = @{shift()};
             ^^       ^
# dereference the array reference
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Perl 5 doesn't know automatically that it received a scalar reference and cannot automatically create an array out of that. You need to tell it yourself.

Please note the parenthesis with shift. You also need these to disambiguate with a global array with the name "shift".

Hope this helps.

Liz