This has nothing to do with references. 

my @a = qw/a b c/;

print "Here are the elements. Notice the comma ", @a;
print "Here's the size. Notice the dot " . @a;

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The concatenation operator "." puts the expression @a in scalar context. This also would print the size: 

print "Notice the comma, but also 'scalar' ", scalar @a;

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In reply to Re: Dereferencing the array and printing by Concatenation? by gaal
in thread Dereferencing the array and printing by Concatenation? by gube

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