Hmm thanks to everyone, I definitely see the distinction. What I am TRYING to do is this: I have a hash, and I want to test whether any of three separate keys produce a 'true' value. So, it looks something like this (I boiled it down for the first example) 
if(@opts{qw|a b c|})
{

}

[download]
Which seemed pretty elegant, but as previously discussed does not work, because its a hash slice. THIS, however, seems horribly inelegant: 
if(@{[@opts{qw|a b c|}]})
{

}

[download]
But perl must have something better than this: 
if($opts{a} || $opts{b} || $opts{c})
{

}

[download]

In reply to Re^2: nonempty false list by Anonymous Monk
in thread nonempty false list by Anonymous Monk

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