scalar - force a scalar context
scalar EXPR
Forces EXPR to be interpreted in a scalar context and returns the value of EXPR.
@counts = ( scalar @a, scalar @b, scalar @c );
There is no equivalent operator to force an expression to be interpolated in a list context because it’s in practice never needed. If you really wanted to do so, however, you could use the construction @{[ (some expression) ]}, but usually a simple (some expression) suffices.