[aaronem]

> Even today, I'm not sure if a function that returns a list (not list ref) can be directly dereferenced into via [] notation.

Unless it's changed very recently, you cannot; you have to wrap it in an arrayref, e.g.

    [returnsAList()]->[0]

[jondum_bau]

all lists can be sliced with the [] notation.

the above example would returnsAList, put it in a new array reference, then dereference it. probably not want you want.

To get the first item from the sub with [] notation would be (returnsAList)[0]

perl -e 'sub returnsAList { return 0..5 }; $v = (returnsAList)[3]; warn $v'