Text::Levenshtein is returning in list context, but scalar context is what should be happening. You could force scalar context by using scalar. For example:

#!/usr/bin/perl -l

use autodie;
use strictures 1;
use Devel::SimpleTrace;

use strict qw/refs/;
use Text::LevenshteinXS qw/distance/;
    
my $x = scalar distance("history", "history");
my $y = scalar distance("gistory", "history");
my $z = scalar distance("history", "hustory");
print $x, "\n", $y, "\n", $z;

use strict qw/refs/;
use Text::Levenshtein::Damerau qw/edistance/;
    
$x = scalar edistance("history", "history");
$y = scalar edistance("gistory", "history");
$z = scalar edistance("history", "hustory");
print $x, "\n", $y, "\n", $z;

use strict qw/refs/;
use Text::Levenshtein;

$x = scalar distance("history", "history");
$y = scalar distance("gistory", "history");
$z = scalar distance("history", "hustory");
print $x, "\n", $y, "\n", $z;
[download]