Actually this command perl -e "@a=(1..5); map {@a=() if $x++>2, $_} @a" appears to cause a true abnormal termination where perl -e dump appears to be somewhat handled by Perl since I see the following message: This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the application's support team for more information. We were looking to force a true Perl abnormal termination and we are now able to do that