\&{'foo'} not caught by strict refs

[p5pRT]

Migrated from rt.perl.org#1834 (status was 'resolved')

Searchable as RT1834$

[p5pRT]

From andrew@pimlott.ne.mediaone.net

\&{'foo'} is allowed under strict refs, while \${'foo'} and &{'foo'} are
not. The following program runs (and prints "foo") if the last two lines
are commented out, but either line will cause a compile time error, "Can't
use string as a (subroutine|SCALAR) ref", if enabled.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use vars qw( $foo $bar );

# Make sure $foo and &foo are both defined
$foo = 'foo';
sub foo { print "foo\n"; }

$bar = \&{'foo'};
&$bar;
#&{'foo'};
#$bar = \${'foo'};
__END__

(Something tells me that I've heard of this exception somewhere, but I can't
find it documented.)

Andrew

Perl Info

Site configuration information for perl 5.00503:

Configured by torin at Wed Sep 22 00:18:38 PDT 1999.

Summary of my perl5 (5.0 patchlevel 5 subversion 3) configuration:
  Platform:
    osname=linux, osvers=2.0.36, archname=i386-linux
    uname='linux perv 2.0.36 #2 wed nov 18 03:00:48 pst 1998 i686 unknown '
    hint=recommended, useposix=true, d_sigaction=define
    usethreads=undef useperlio=undef d_sfio=undef
  Compiler:
    cc='cc', optimize='-O2', gccversion=2.95.1 19990809 (prerelease)
    cppflags='-Dbool=char -DHAS_BOOL -D_REENTRANT -DDEBIAN -I/usr/local/include'
    ccflags ='-Dbool=char -DHAS_BOOL -D_REENTRANT -DDEBIAN -I/usr/local/include'
    stdchar='char', d_stdstdio=undef, usevfork=false
    intsize=4, longsize=4, ptrsize=4, doublesize=8
    d_longlong=define, longlongsize=8, d_longdbl=define, longdblsize=12
    alignbytes=4, usemymalloc=n, prototype=define
  Linker and Libraries:
    ld='cc', ldflags =' -L/usr/local/lib'
    libpth=/usr/local/lib /lib /usr/lib
    libs=-lnsl -lndbm -lgdbm -ldbm -ldb -ldl -lm -lc -lposix -lcrypt
    libc=, so=so, useshrplib=false, libperl=libperl.a
  Dynamic Linking:
    dlsrc=dl_dlopen.xs, dlext=so, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags='-rdynamic'
    cccdlflags='-fPIC', lddlflags='-shared -L/usr/local/lib'

Locally applied patches:
    


@INC for perl 5.00503:
    /usr/lib/perl5/5.005/i386-linux
    /usr/lib/perl5/5.005
    /usr/local/lib/site_perl/i386-linux
    /usr/local/lib/site_perl
    /usr/lib/perl5
    .


Environment for perl 5.00503:
    HOME=/home/andrew
    LANG (unset)
    LANGUAGE (unset)
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH (unset)
    LOGDIR (unset)
    PATH=/home/andrew/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/home/andrew/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/games
    PERL_BADLANG (unset)
    SHELL=/usr/bin/zsh

[p5pRT]

From @TimToady

If I recall, part of the reasoning was that making it catch that would break
autoloading, when done with

  goto &$AUTOLOAD;

But it oughta be documented.

Larry