List assignment in a scalar context returns the number of items in the right-hand side because that is extremely useful as a Boolean test, as shown in your own example: 

    while( my( $k, $v ) = each %h ) {

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You wouldn't want that loop to terminate early just because one of the values in %h was false.

- tye        

In reply to Re: list assignment to list in scalar context (boolean) by tye
in thread list assignment to list in scalar context by Anonymous Monk

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