I use this form quite often... my ($val) = () = something; I also use $this->{key} = my $val = 7;; it's not a bug. The assignment has a value of the rvalue. Neat!! If you understand this, I don't understand the question... What if I wanted to do this?

$this->{key} = 
   # this is an important note about the next assignment
   my $val = blarg();
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Should I have to then tell critic to ## no critic that?