As said in Perl Cookbook

Using references, you can efficiently pass large amounts of data to and from a subroutine.

However, passing references to scalars typically turns out not to be an optimization at all.

Yes, several megabytes contained in the returned value is a good reason to use references. Your benchmark proves it. However if the length of returned scalar is not big than you get valuable overhead on dereferencing.

In reply to Re: Does the reference of a scalar more efficient than scalar? by ccn
in thread Does the reference of a scalar more efficient than scalar? by sunshine_august

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