Hi all,

please have a look at the following code sample:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use 5.010;

sub get_a_list {
    return qw(first mid last);
}

sub get_an_array {
    my @a = qw(first mid last);
    return @a;
}

my $a = get_a_list();
say "\$a: $a";
my $b = get_an_array();
say "\$b: $b";

[download]

While the behaviour of case 'b' is clear to me, I can't find an explanation for case 'a'. Can someone give me that explanation or a pointer to documentation explaining it? Why do I get the last element of the list and not the first. And why do I get the element count in case 'b' but not in case 'a'?

Thank you in advance.

Best regards
McA

In reply to Need explanatiin for subtle difference by McA

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