There are a few more caveats pointing out some differences between the memory Perl asked for, what Devel::Size can report, and what the operating system has actually allocated. If interested, there is a nice explanation in the documentation of Devel::Size

The following script tries to show some basic values:

examples/memory_of_variables.pl

use strict;
use warnings;
use 5.010;

use Devel::Size qw(size total_size);

my $x;
my @y;
my %z;

say '                           size  total_size';
both('SCALAR', \$x);        #    24    24
both('ARRAY',  \@y);        #    64    64
both('HASH',   \%z);        #   120   120
both('CODE', sub {} );      #  8452  8452
say '';

both('SCALAR', \$x);        #  24    24
$x = 'x';
both('SCALAR-1', \$x);      #  56    56
$x = 'x' x 15;
both('SCALAR-15', \$x);     #  56    56
$x = 'x' x 16;
both('SCALAR-16', \$x);     #  72    72
$x = 'x' x 31;
both('SCALAR-31', \$x);     #  72    72
$x = 'x' x 32;
both('SCALAR-32', \$x);     #  88    88
$x = '';
both('SCALAR=""', \$x);     #  88    88
$x = undef;
both('SCALAR=undef', \$x);  #  88    88
undef $x;
both('undef SCALAR', \$x);  #  40    40
say '';

both('ARRAY',  \@y);               #    64    64
@y = ('x');
both('ARRAY-1', \@y);              #    96   152
@y = ('x' x 15);
both('ARRAY-15', \@y);             #    96   152
@y = ('x' x 16);
both('ARRAY-16', \@y);             #    96   168
@y = ('x' x 31);
both('ARRAY-31', \@y);             #    96   168
@y = ('x' x 32);
both('ARRAY-32', \@y);             #    96   184
@y = ('x') x 2;
both('ARRAY-1-1', \@y);            #    96   208
@y = ('x') x 4;
both('ARRAY-1-1-1-1', \@y);        #    96   320
@y = ('x') x 5;
both('ARRAY-1-1-1-1-1', \@y);      #   104   384
@y = ('x') x 6;
both('ARRAY-1-1-1-1-1-1', \@y);    #   112   448
@y = ('x') x 7;
both('ARRAY-1-1-1-1-1-1-1', \@y);  #   128   520
@y = ();
both('ARRAY = ()', \@y);           #   128   128
undef @y;
both('undef ARRAY', \@y);          #    64    64
say('');

both('HASH',   \%z);                       #  120   120
%z = ('x' => undef);
both('HASH x => undef',   \%z);            #  179   203
%z = ('x' => "x");
both('HASH x => "x"',   \%z);              #  179   235
%z = ('x' x 10 => "x" x 20);
both('HASH "x" x 10 => "x" x 20',   \%z);  #  188   260
for my $c (qw(a b c d e f g h i)) {
    $z{$c x 10} = $c x 20;
}
both('HASH 10 * 10 + 10 * 20',   \%z);     #  864  1584
%z = ();
both('HASH=()',   \%z);                    #  184   184
undef %z;
both('undef HASH',   \%z);                 #  120   120
my $o = bless \%z,'Some::Very::Long::Class::Name::That::Probably::Noone::Uses';
both('blessed HASH', $o);                  #  120   120
say('');

both('CODE', sub {}  );                   #  8516  8516
both('CODE2', sub { my $w }  );           #  8612  8612
both('CODE3', sub { my $w = 'a' }  );     #  8820  8820

sub both {
    my ($name, $ref) = @_;
    printf "%-25s %5d %5d\n", $name, size($ref), total_size($ref);
}

The environment

These results were generated on 64 bit OSX, running perl 5.18.2 using Devel::Size 0.79. (BTW I got almost the same results when I ran the script on 5.18.1, except that the values for CODE-references were 8 bytes smaller.)

Some observations

The size of code-references look huge. I wonder if those number are correct.

Strangely bless does not change the size of the reference. Or at least, it is not reported.

Memory is allocated in 16 byte chunks for strings. Hence the memory used by a 1-character long string is the same as used by a 15-character long string.

Neither setting the string to the empty string ($x = '';), nor assigning undef to it ($x = undef;) reduced the memory usage. I had to call undef $x; for that. Even then it went back only to 40, instead of the original 24.

In arrays, every element uses 8 bytes + memory allocated to the scalar container + the data.

Setting @y = (); eliminated the memory allocation of the date (or at least total_size does not show it any more) Calling undef @y; also freed the memory allocated to the structure.

In hashes it's even more complex. I won't attempt to describe it. The documentation of Devel::Size has some explanation.

The actual results look like this

                          size    total_size
SCALAR                       24    24
ARRAY                        64    64
HASH                        120   120
CODE                       8452  8452

SCALAR                       24    24
SCALAR-1                     56    56
SCALAR-15                    56    56
SCALAR-16                    72    72
SCALAR-31                    72    72
SCALAR-32                    88    88
SCALAR=""                    88    88
SCALAR=undef                 88    88
undef SCALAR                 40    40

ARRAY                        64    64
ARRAY-1                      96   152
ARRAY-15                     96   152
ARRAY-16                     96   168
ARRAY-31                     96   168
ARRAY-32                     96   184
ARRAY-1-1                    96   208
ARRAY-1-1-1-1                96   320
ARRAY-1-1-1-1-1             104   384
ARRAY-1-1-1-1-1-1           112   448
ARRAY-1-1-1-1-1-1-1         128   520
ARRAY = ()                  128   128
undef ARRAY                  64    64

HASH                        120   120
HASH x => undef             179   203
HASH x => "x"               179   235
HASH "x" x 10 => "x" x 20   188   260
HASH 10 * 10 + 10 * 20      864  1584
HASH=()                     184   184
undef HASH                  120   120
blessed HASH                120   120

CODE                       8516  8516
CODE2                      8612  8612
CODE3                      8820  8820