No no, don't put them parathesis! That makes perl evaluate the subroutine, and put the ref to the result of the sub in the hash

    my $rv = mysub();     ## sub is executed. normal
    my $rv = &mysyb();    ## same as above, but bad style, I think
    my $rv = \&mysub;     ## ref to the subroutine <- this is what we 
+want
    my $rv = \&mysub();   ## ref to the return value of the subroutine
    my $rv = \{ &mysub() }; ## same as above
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UPDATE: wog corrected me: "\{ &mysub() } creates a reference to a refrence to a hash generated from mysub() returns in list context,". I apologize for the mistake :-(