in reply to Re^3: No garbage collection for my-variables
in thread No garbage collection for my-variables

@a = sort @a is done in place before 5.10

>perl580\bin\perl -MO=Concise -e"@a = sort @a" 2>&1 | find "sort" 7 <@> sort lK ->8 >perl588\bin\perl -MO=Concise -e"@a = sort @a" 2>&1 | find "sort" 7 <@> sort lK/INPLACE ->8 >perl5100\bin\perl -MO=Concise -e"@a = sort @a" 2>&1 | find "sort" 7 <@> sort lK/INPLACE ->8

I don't have 5.8.1 to 5.8.7, so let's consult the perldeltas.

perl584delta:

In place sort optimised (eg @a = sort @a)

But it was buggy in 5.8.4. perl585delta:

The in-place sort optimisation introduced in 5.8.4 had a bug. For example, in code such as @a = sort ($b, @a), the result would omit the value $b. This is now fixed.