When you access an array in scalar context, it returns the number of elements. You can make this explicit so

my @list = qw/malay manab milan anand/;
my $count1 = scalar @list; # these are
my $count2 = @list;        # the same
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By surrounding it in quotes you are asking for the values to be interpolated into a string separated by $" (default space character). See http://perldoc.perl.org/perldata.html or type "perldoc perldata" for more information.