I don't think so - at least not that I'm aware of. However, you might able to solve them problem elsewhere. For instance, if
$x is the return value of a function, the function could check
wantarray to see what the caller wants, i.e.
sub func {
...
return (wantarray ? ($x) : [$x]);
}
my @arr = func(); # returns an array
my $arr = func(); # returns an array ref