I like ~~EXPR as a brief (read: obfuscated) way to enforce scalar context on an expression; it only renders the return value unusable if EXPR is a reference.
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Jeff japhy Pinyan,
P.L., P.M., P.O.D, X.S.:
Perl,
regex,
and perlhacker How can we ever be the sold short or the cheated, we who for every service have long ago been overpaid? ~~ Meister Eckhart