In Perl, what is the difference between accessing an array element using @a[$i] as opposed to using $a[$i]?

Question

Basic syntax tutorials I followed do not make this clear:

Is there any practical/philosophical/context-dependent/tricky difference between accessing a

Answer 1

If you turn on warnings (which you always should) you would see this:

Scalar value @a[0] better written as $a[0]

when you use @a[1].

The @ sigil means "give me a list of something." When used with an array subscript, it retrieves a slice of the array. For example, @foo[0..3] retrieves the first four items in the array @foo.

When you write @a[1], you're asking for a one-element slice from @a. That's perfectly OK, but it's much clearer to ask for a single value, $a[1], instead. So much so that Perl will warn you if you do it the first way.