How can I store entire contents of a Perl array to a scalar variable?

Question

How can I store entire contents of an array to a scalar variable. eg:

my $code = do { local $/; <FILE HANDLE>; };

This works fine for file handles but I need this for an array.

Answer 1

Use join.

my $str = join '', @array;

Answer 2

@arr = ("1","2","3") ;
my $arr = "@arr" ;
print "$arr";

Answer 3

You can actually use a scalar variable as a filehandle:

my $bigbuffer;
my $f;
open $f, ">", \$bigbuffer; # opens $f for writing into the variable $bigbuffer
# do whatever prints fwrites etc you want here

Answer 4

You can also take a reference to the array:

my @array = 'a'..'z';

my $scalar = \@array;

foo( $scalar );

sub foo {
    my $array_ref = shift;

    for my $f ( @$array_ref ) {

       do_something( $f ); 

    }
}

Which approach you take really depends on what you are trying to accomplish.