$ perl -le " sub dang : lvalue { undef } dang()=1; " Can't return undef from lvalue subroutine at -e line 1. $ perl -le " sub dang : lvalue { undef } dang()->[0] " Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at -e line 1. $ perl -le " undef->[0] " Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at -e line 1. $ perl -le " my $variable = undef; $variable->[0] "