perl -le 'sub x {@x = qw(a b c); @x }; $r=x; print $r' 3 perl -le 'sub x {@x = qw(a b c); ()=@x }; $r=x; print $r' 3 perl -le 'sub x {@x = qw(a b c); @x[0..$#x] }; $r=x; print $r' c perl -le 'sub x {@x = qw(a b c); ()=@x[0..$#x] }; $r=x; print $r' 3