perlquestion shmem I have been reading [kyle]'s [id://738558]. Now I just wonder - how much of context is compile-time, how much run-time? Has that been discussed yet? I ask because <code> perl -le 'my $f = 1; ($f > 0 ? @a : $a ) = ("a", "b", "c")' Assignment to both a list and a scalar at -e line 1, at EOF Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors. </code> could be resolved at run-time, which isn't, because it barfs at compile-time. This works, however: <code> perl -le 'my $f = -1; ($f > 0 ? @a : @b ) = ("a", "b", "c"); print "a: @a\nb: @b"' a: b: a b c perl -le 'my $f = 1; ($f > 0 ? @a : @b ) = ("a", "b", "c"); print "a: @a\nb: @b"' a: a b c b: </code> update: [doc://diagnostics] tells me that <blockquote> Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors (#1) <blockquote> (F) If you assign to a conditional operator, the 2nd and 3rd arguments must either both be scalars or both be lists. Otherwise Perl won't know which context to supply to the right side. </blockquote> </blockquote> which looks like establishing the context for the RHS is a compile-time thing. Is there such a thing as runtime context resolving, at all?