An alternate way of looking at the problem (besides focusing on the comma's behavior as an operator): is that in the 2nd example, you are putting parentheses around a list. You'll get the same value assigned to "$s" whether you use parentheses or not.

In a way, it's similar to using semi-colons to separate statements that are grouped together: 

my $s = do {"111"; "222"; "aaa"; "bbb"};
print $s."\n";

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The above also prints "bbb" -- but if you have warnings on, it will also warn you that the first 3 items are ignored: 
> perl -e '
use warnings;
my $s = do {"111"; "222"; "aaa"; "bbb"};
print $s."\n";'    
Useless use of a constant ("111") in void context at -e line 3.
Useless use of a constant ("222") in void context at -e line 3.
Useless use of a constant ("aaa") in void context at -e line 3.
bbb

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In reply to Re: The behavior when assigning an array to scalar? by perl-diddler
in thread The behavior when assigning an array to scalar? by fgg1991

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