the glob is not anonymous, because globs can only be in a package

Actually, as you hint at later, local makes this so that it isn't strictly true. You have to create a glob in a package namespace (at least when writing Perl, probably not so when writing C imbedded in perl), which also gives it a name, but it doesn't have to stay there. I don't know if open also temporarilly creates *{'$foo'} and then moves it out of the symbol table, but the end result is similar to that of:   my $foo= do { local *{'$foo'}; \*{'$foo'}; }; so that none of your *$foos are in any symbol table, and so none of them are the same as *{'$foo'}.

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")