Note that this is true with a number of other different perlfuncs that return as immutable lists rather than arrays... copying the de-referenced return and forcing it back into an array will cure most non-perlish headaches.

For example:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my @array = qw( a b c d e f );

# With sort..
my $sorted = shift( @{ [ sort( @array ) ] } );

# With grep
my $grepped = shift( @{ [ grep{ /\w+/ } @array ] } );

# With map
my $mapped = shift( @{ [ map{ $_ } @array ] } );

# As a stringified method call
my $method = "@{ [ FooBar->new()->a_method() ] }";

print "$sorted\n$grepped\n$mapped\n$method\n";

package FooBar;

use strict;
use warnings;

sub new { return bless {}, shift; }

sub a_method{ return 'some string'; }
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Yay for Perl!