AFAIK, it is not officially documented in any place, but you can see it's true dumping the OP tree:
salva@vespa:/tmp$ perl -MO=Concise -e '@i = sort @j'
c <@> leave[1 ref] vKP/REFC ->(end)
1 <0> enter ->2
2 <;> nextstate(main 1 -e:1) v ->3
b <2> aassign[t5] vKS ->c
- <1> ex-list lK ->8
3 <0> pushmark s ->4
7 <@> sort lK ->8
4 <0> pushmark s ->5
6 <1> rv2av[t4] lK/1 ->7
5 <#> gv[*j] s ->6
- <1> ex-list lK ->b
8 <0> pushmark s ->9
a <1> rv2av[t2] lKRM*/1 ->b
9 <#> gv[*i] s ->a
-e syntax OK
salva@vespa:/tmp$ perl -MO=Concise -e '@i = sort @i'
8 <@> leave[1 ref] vKP/REFC ->(end)
1 <0> enter ->2
2 <;> nextstate(main 1 -e:1) v ->3
- <1> ex-aassign vKS/64 ->8
- <1> ex-list lK ->-
3 <0> pushmark s ->4
7 <@> sort lK/INPLACE ->8
4 <0> pushmark s ->5
6 <1> rv2av[t4] lKRM*/1 ->7
5 <#> gv[*i] s ->6
- <1> ex-list lK ->-
- <0> ex-pushmark s ->-
- <1> ex-rv2av lKRM*/1 ->-
- <0> ex-gv s ->-
-e syntax OK
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