Presumably, the concatenation operator is imposing scalar context in the second case
Not just in the second case. It always imposes scalar context on both operands.
Wherein lies the difference?
The number of times you concatenate. The first time, you concatenate 10 times (as the arrays both have 5 elements). The second time, you concatenate twice - @AoA has two elements.

Abigail


In reply to Re: Dereferencing and context? by Abigail-II
in thread Dereferencing and context? by Not_a_Number

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