in reply to Confusion with context

(sidestepping your actual question...)
what about: 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

my $array_ref = [qw/one two three four/];

$array_ref->[1] =~ s/w//g;

print Dumper($array_ref);

[download]
This avoids the temporary variable, and looks pretty readable to me.

Ignore me — I didn't see the capturing parentheses. {sigh}. /me goes to find coffee.

Update: I'd probably write it like this: 

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

sub foo {
        my $array_ref = ["foo" , "enum('bar,baz')"];

        if($array_ref->[1] =~ /enum\('(.*?)'\)/) {
                return split ",", $1;
        }
}

print Dumper(foo());

[download]
The temporary variable you're talking about is automatically created (called "$1") containing the contents of the capturing parentheses. If you had more than one capturing set, they'd be returned as ($1, $2) (ie the match operation returns an arraylist containing the contents of each of the capturing parentheses, hence your needing the [0] in the second version).

davis
It wasn't easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom