On the other hand, the following versions all work: 

my $aa;
my $bb;
(undef, $aa, $bb) = dir();

[download]
my ($aa, $bb);
(undef, $aa, $bb) = dir();

[download]
(undef, my $aa, my $bb) = dir();

[download]
(undef, my ($aa, $bb)) = dir();

[download]
my ($aa, $bb) = ( dir() )[1, 2];

[download]

Update: Apparently, so does the following (contrary to the parent's claims): 

my (undef, $aa, $bb) = dir();

[download]

Tested the last one on Perl 5.6.0, 5.6.1, 5.8.0 and 5.8.8.

In reply to Re^3: Pulling out an element from a function return without using an intermediate list by ikegami
in thread Pulling out an element from a function return without using an intermediate list by throop

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