I just wanted to point out that there is a side effect to not using parens on a subroutine/method call: the called subroutine "inherits" the @_ array of the caller.

Not entirely true. While &foo passes @_, foo and foo() and &foo() do not. Hence, imho for not passing @_ the best solution is to avoid the ampersand where possible (which means you pretty much only use it to create references).

Proof:

sub test {
    print "\@_: @_\n";
}

@_ = qw(a b c);

print 'test; # ';      
test;

print '&test; # ';
&test;

print 'test(); # ';
test();

print '&test(); # ';
&test();

__END__
test; # @_: 
&test; # @_: a b c
test(); # @_: 
&test(); # @_:
[download]

44696420796F7520732F2F2F65206F
7220756E7061636B3F202F6D736720
6D6521203A29202D2D204A75657264

And then there is also the magical

goto &foo;
[download]

But maybe we shouldnt go there... ;-)

Yves / DeMerphq
--
When to use Prototypes?
Advanced Sorting - GRT - Guttman Rosler Transform

My perl {3,4} training is showing, obviously... :-)

Thanks for the correction.

Michael