>perl -le"@a = 'a' x 5; print 0+@a"
1

>perl -le"@a = ('a') x 5; print 0+@a"
5

>perl -le"@a = qw( a ) x 5; print 0+@a"
5

>perl -le"@a = sub { qw( a ) }->() x 5; print 0+@a"
1