$ perl -MO=Deparse -e 'sub Foo{};(time ? @y=() : $x) = Foo()' | perl -e syntax OK $ perl -MO=Deparse,-p -e 'sub Foo{};(time ? @y=() : $x) = Foo()' | perl -e syntax OK Assignment to both a list and a scalar at - line 4, near "))" Execution of - aborted due to compilation errors.