Yes, I know, we don't typecast in Perl. But I got to thinking about the issue of context imposition. 

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Perl6::Say;        # print with trailing newline

my $lunch        ;
my @lunch        ;
my %lunch        ;

sub lunch {
    return ( 'Beans', 'Burger' );
};

say '1: ', lunch();

$lunch            = lunch();
say '2: ', $lunch;

$lunch            = ( 'Pork', 'Salad' );
say '3: ', $lunch;

@lunch            = ( 'Rice', 'Noodles' );
say '4: ', @lunch;
$lunch            = @lunch;
say '5: ', $lunch;

%lunch            = ( 'Chicken', 'Steak');
say '6: ', %lunch;
$lunch            = %lunch;
say '7: ', $lunch;
@lunch            = %lunch;
say '8: ', @lunch;
$lunch            = @lunch;
say '9: ', $lunch;

__DATA__

Output: 

Useless use of a constant in void context at ./return-demo.pl line 20.
1: BeansBurger
2: Burger
3: Salad
4: RiceNoodles
5: 2
6: ChickenSteak
7: 1/8
8: ChickenSteak
9: 2

__END__

[download]
My explanation for most of that output is:
  1. lunch() returns a two-element list
  2. $lunch forces scalar context on the returned list, getting the last element
  3. $lunch forces scalar context on a literal list, getting the last element
    and raising a warning ('Pork' is thrown away, hence useless)
  4. @lunch is an array and say() prints its contents
  5. $lunch forces scalar context on an array, @lunch, getting the number of elements
  6. %lunch is flattened (by parameter passing) into a list; contents printed
  7. ?
  8. %lunch is flattened (by assignment to @lunch) into a list
  9. $lunch forces scalar context on @lunch, getting the number of elements
The output 7: 1/8 baffles me. I expected anything else.

In reply to Typecasting Hashes by Xiong

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