gistfile1.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
use Time::HiRes qw/ time/;

sub unwrap_ref {
    my ( @list ) = @_;
    my @return;
    for my $elem ( @list ) {
        if ( ref $elem eq 'ARRAY' ) {
            push @return, unwrap_ref( @{$elem} );
        } else {
            push @return, $elem;
        }
    }
    return @return;
}

=head2 aref_to_list

Given an array of array refs of any depth, return a list
of non-ref scalars.

As a side effect, any other type in the array will be silently 
disregarded.

=cut

sub aref_to_list {
    my ( @list ) = @_;
    my @return;

    while ( my $elem = shift @list ) {
        push @return, $elem unless ref $elem;
        unshift @list, @{$elem} if ref $elem eq 'ARRAY';
    }
    return @return;
}

my $start = time;
print Dumper unwrap_ref( "foo", [ "bar", "blee", [ "baz" ], ], "taz" );
print "Above took " . ( time-$start ) . "\n";
$start = time;
print Dumper smush( "foo", [ "bar", "blee", [ "baz" ], ], "taz" );
print "Above took " . ( time-$start ) . "\n";