I disagree. This is kinda clever, but I suspect that a single pass would be clearer. I would do this: 
my @array = qw(4 3 7 8 9 49 12 23 43);
my ($largest, $largest_idx) = ($array1[0], 0);
for my $i (1 .. $#array) {
        ($largest, $largest_idx) = ($array[$i], $i)
                if $largest < $array[$i];
}
print "Largest number is $largest, at offset $largest_idx\n";

[download]
It really seems like something like this should be available in List::Util or List::MoreUtils, and I would use one of those instead of the sort+smartmatch. At any rate, I am most likely to need this sort of calculation in PDL, where I would do it like this: 
use PDL;
my $data = pdl(qw(4 3 7 8 9 49 12 23 43));
my $largest_idx = $data->maximum_ind;
my $largest = $data->at($max_idx);
print "Largest number is $largest, at offset $largest_idx\n";

[download]
but PDL would be overkill for a dataset of this size.

In reply to Re: Answer: How can I find the index of the biggest element in an array? by dcmertens
in thread How can I find the index of the biggest element in an array? by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.