That is a reference to a COPY of @option_array.

No, nothing is being copied.

In list context, \(@array) is equivalent to \($array[0], $array[1], ..., $array[-1]), which is equivalent to \$array[0], \$array[1], ..., \$array[-1].

In scalar context, \(@array) is equivalent to \($array[0], $array[1], ..., $array[-1]), which is equivalent to \$array[-1].

The above also applies to \(our @option_array). The OP wants \our @option_array (no parens), which returns a reference to the array.

In reply to Re^2: Issue with multiple options for a Getopt::Long argument by ikegami
in thread Issue with multiple options for a Getopt::Long argument by Anonymous Monk

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