Is returning a whole array from a Perl subroutine inefficient?

Question

I often have a subroutine in Perl that fills an array with some information. Since I\'m also used to hacking in C++, I find myself often do it like this in Perl, using refer

Answer 1

Passing references is more efficient, but the difference is not as big as in C++. The argument values themselves (that means: the values in the array) are always passed by reference anyway (returned values are copied though).

Question is: does it matter? Most of the time, it doesn't. If you're returning 5 elements, don't bother about it. If you're returning/passing 100'000 elements, use references. Only optimize it if it's a bottleneck.