Using B::Deparse, I found a difference in parsing between Perl version 5.6.1 and the 5.8.x branch.

I know that this does not look terribly important, except maybe for obfuscation contests, but I thought better to mention it, just in case.

$ perl.5.6.1  -MO=Deparse -e '$a=$;;print $a'
$a = $;;         # two semicolons, one belonging to the variable,
                 # the other one is a statement separator
print $a;
-e syntax OK

$ perl.5.8.0  -MO=Deparse -e '$a=$;;print $a'
$a = $;          # the separator is missing
print $a;
-e syntax OK

$ perl.5.8.1  -MO=Deparse -e '$a=$;;print $a'
$a = $;          # the separator is missing
print $a;
-e syntax OK
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Is this a bug?