c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le "sub foo { print 'hi from foo()'; } my $bar = 42; ;; my $agent = (foo(), $bar, 666, 99); print qq{agent $agent}; " Useless use of private variable in void context at -e line 1. Useless use of a constant (666) in void context at -e line 1. hi from foo() agent 99