$ perl -v

This is perl, v5.8.6 built for darwin-thread-multi-2level
(with 2 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail)

...

$ perl -e "$a = Class::; print $a"
syntax error at -e line 1, near "="
Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.
$ perl -e '$a = Class::; print $a'
Class