As long as at least one reference to a variable exists, the variable will not be garbage-collected. So in this example: 
sub foo { my @x = qw(a b c); return \@x }
my $f = foo();

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...@x's contents remain, and $f now holds a reference to @x, such that $f->[0] eq 'a'. But here: 
sub foo { my @x = qw(a b c); return \@x }
foo();

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...@x can be garbage-collected as normal, since the reference to @x gets dropped on the floor.

In reply to Re: 'my' Variable life cycle by gamache
in thread 'my' Variable life cycle by Anonymous Monk

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