No it does not:
$ perl -wE'my @x=`ls -1`;say $#x'
102
backticks are the equivalent of the qx operator:
$ perldoc -f qx
"qx/STRING/"
A string which is (possibly) interpolated and then execute
+d as a
system command with /bin/sh or its equivalent. Shell wildc
+ards,
pipes, and redirections will be honored. The collected sta
+ndard
output of the command is returned; standard error is unaff
+ected.
In scalar context, it comes back as a single (potentially
multi-line) string, or "undef" if the command failed. In l
+ist
^^^^
+^^^
context, returns a list of lines (however you've defined l
+ines
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
with $/ or $INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR), or an empty list if t
+he
command failed.
Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn