While updating an old program I noticed I had passed a list from die() to a scalar parameter in a subroutine. Even though the list only contained one element I assumed this was a bad practice. Out of curiosity I tested adding a second element and was surprised that the next parameter didn't get overwritten because the @_ elements were squashed into a single string. This seems useful but is it safe to rely on something like this?

use strict;
use warnings;

my @msg = ( "This is line one.", "Line two.\n" );
die @msg;

sub BEGIN {
    $SIG{__DIE__}  = sub  { 
        my @log_files = qw( error.log ftp.log );
        send_status_email( 'me@work.com', 'script error', @_, \@log_fi
+les ); 
    };
}

sub send_status_email {

    my ($to_address, $status, $message, $ar_attachments ) = @_;
    print "To:     $to_address\n";
    print "Status: $status\n";
    print "Message <$message>\n";
    foreach ( @$ar_attachments ) {
        print "ar: $_\n";
    }
    print "***************** sub finished\n";
}

__END__

**Output**

To:     me@work.com
Status: script error
Message <This is line one.Line two.
>
ar: error.log
ar: ftp.log
***************** sub finished
This is line one.Line two.
[download]

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