Without wantarray perl doesn't seem to reduce memory usage
sub mm { print( (`pslist -m $$ 2>NUL`)[-2,-1] )}
sub ff { my @fudge = 1 .. 1_000_000; @fudge }
sub fa { scalar @{[ &ff ]} }
mm; ff; mm; warn fa;
__END__
Name Pid VM WS Priv Priv Pk Faults Non
+P Page
perl 796 62168 46336 44336 48196 12572
+2 34
Name Pid VM WS Priv Priv Pk Faults Non
+P Page
perl 796 66076 50280 48252 48260 13582
+2 34
1000000 at - line 4.
Using the accumulator doesn't appear to reduce memory usage, because one function still returns a list
sub mm { print( (`pslist -m $$ 2>NUL`)[-2,-1] )}
sub ff { my @fudge = 1 .. 1_000_000; @fudge }
sub fa { scalar( () = &ff ) }
mm; ff; mm; warn fa;
__END__
Name Pid VM WS Priv Priv Pk Faults Non
+P Page
perl 1432 62168 46336 44336 48196 12572
+2 34
Name Pid VM WS Priv Priv Pk Faults Non
+P Page
perl 1432 66076 50280 48252 48260 13582
+2 34
1000000 at - line 4.
I suppose this could actually be optimized, I see no technical reason, but its fairly minor