Add use strict; to your code and it will tell you why.
This is not 100% sure: @pileofinchis may be declared in a lexical scope enclosing the sub definition. In which case he may even desire to actually push into it. But then I see no reason to return a reference to it as well, and I'd be curious to know what he is doing with it...

In reply to Re^2: Ghostly subroutine variables haunting me in subsequent calls by blazar
in thread Ghostly subroutine variables haunting me in subsequent calls by moonunit

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