@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

[download]

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.

In reply to Re^4: No garbage collection for my-variables by ikegami
in thread No garbage collection for my-variables by betterworld

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