Thank you for the response. I do know about using references, I have used them here and there to pass something to a function that was not in that function's scope. That's not really what I am looking for here. I was not clear enough. I just really wonder whether it is more efficient to set up my array at point A, or point B in the pseudocode below which is trying illustrate my question:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my @bigarray = ("insert", "a very", "long list here");#point A

my $thing1 = mySub();
my $thing2 = mySub();
#...etc - using mySub repeatedly

sub mySub {
   #point B - should I declare my @bigarray here instead, and why?
   for (@bigarray){
     #do stuff with array
   }
}
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