Greetings, I present an elementary question for a bored monk.

$ perl -e 'print "\@hi\n";'
@hi
[download]

I understand why the backslash before the @ is required here to get a literal @ in an interpolating string: without it, the @ would be interpreted as indicating an array named hi.

It is not needed (though adding it is harmless) in strings where there is no ambiguity about what the @ might represent:

$ perl -e 'print "@=hi\n";'
@=hi
[download]

But why is it needed to signal a literal @ in the following?

$ perl -e 'print "@$0\n";'

$ perl -e 'print "\@$0\n";'
@-e
[download]

How can an @ followed by a $ be interpreted as a valid array name? (The reverse, $@, is a predefined variable, but @$ is not.) And if it can't, why is the backslash needed to indicate this @ is literal?

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