> But this is misleading or could be better phrased: The correct answer would hence be using Devel::Size to get the total memory of a deep data structure. Unless I misunderstood and by correct answer you mean to some other question!

I rephrase, the most sensible answer to a general "TOTAL length/size of an array" is memory consumption measured by Devel::Size. Anything else is a matter of interpretation and lengthy definitions in the question.

> has nothing to do with the size of memory it uses

well in the case of strings it's roughly proportional. Maybe mostly off by 10% in average.

And yes, I was nitpicking... :)

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