in reply to list context

Do the parentheses around $x do anything?

Yes, they make a single-element list.

It seems to me that the rhs will always be a scalar...

It will, because the high-precedence or operator (||) imposes scalar context on its operands and evaluates to a scalar.

Consider, however, the difference between:

my  $x  = @some_array;
my ($y) = @some_array;

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The lvalue parentheses are significant.

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Re^2: list context
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Dec 07, 2010 at 00:06 UTC

    It will, because the high-precedence or operator (||) imposes scalar context on its operands and evaluates to a scalar.

    Only on the LHS. 

    use feature qw( say );

my @s = 0 || scalar('a','b','c');
my @l = 0 || ('a','b','c');

say for @s;
say "---";
say for @l;

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    c
---
a
b
c

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      In this case yes (I was too hasty in my explanation). The operator passes along the context in which it appears to its rhs expression.

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