The title of your question is misleading, because you want the total number of characters of an array of strings

An array has only the "size" of scalar @array because in reality the members are only pointers to scalars.

But a scalar can be a reference to an even deeper data structure.

The correct answer would hence be using Devel::Size to get the total memory of a deep data structure.

If you only want the total length of characters of a deep data structure, you can (ab)use serializers Data::Dumper or similar for an approximation, with the benefit that this would "work" for more deeply nested structures too

edit DEMO

  DB<20> use Data::Dumper

  DB<21> @a=("abc", "cd", "e", "fg", "hi", "hello world");

  DB<23> $Data::Dumper::Terse  = 1

  DB<24> $Data::Dumper::Indent = 0

  DB<25> p Dumper @a
'abc''cd''e''fg''hi''hello world'
  DB<26> p length(Dumper @a)-2*@a
21
  DB<27>

[download]

Cheers Rolf
(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
see Wikisyntax for the Monastery

In reply to Re: How to get the TOTAL length/size of an array? by LanX
in thread How to get the TOTAL length/size of an array? by Polyglot

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