I don't know why B::Concise doesn't dump the contents of array, but B::Concise does show that the array is in the optree.

$ perl -MO=Concise,-exec -e'my @a = 1..1000'
1  <0> enter 
2  <;> nextstate(main 1 -e:1) v:{
3  <0> pushmark s
4  <$> const[AV ] s
              ^
              |

5  <1> rv2av lKP/1
6  <0> pushmark s
7  <0> padav[@a:1,2] lRM*/LVINTRO
8  <2> aassign[t4] vKS/COMMON
9  <@> leave[1 ref] vKP/REFC
-e syntax OK
[download]

I know that the array is there, but that doesn't convince me that those 100k scalars are built at compile time. There might just as well be a magic initializer attached to it that generates them at runtime, or at closure cloning time or whenever.

No matter how big I chose the number in the range, I can't see increased memory consumption at compile time, which is why i suspect they aren't created at compile time.

Perl 6 - second systems done right

I know that the array is there, but that doesn't convince me that those 100k scalars are built at compile time

I showed the array is created at compile-time.

I showed that once the list is built, it's not freed.

I showed through memory usage monitoring that the list is built at compile-time.

Not sure what else you want.

No matter how big I chose the number in the range, I can't see increased memory consumption at compile time, which is why i suspect they aren't created at compile time.

What's your test? Are you mistakenly using for (CONST..CONST) instead of the range operator?