According to perldoc perlsub, the & is optional as are the parentheses if the subroutine has been predeclared. The & is not optional when just naming the subroutine. Nor is it optional when you do an indrect subroutine call with a subroutine name or reference using the &$subref() or &{$subref}() constructions, although the $subref->() notatation solves that problem.

For me they work differently.

put_string_ref( \(get_string()) ); # pass return value of get_string()
put_string_ref( \(&get_string) );  # pass a coderef pointing to &get_s
+tring
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I guess if we take what tye mentioned in another response, in that we don't need the brackets for this to work, then it looks like the following holds true:

\&func  # gives you a reference to a function
\func() # gives you a reference to the return value of func
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and a quick test verifies this:

sub func { "the string"; }

print \&func,  "\n";  # prints CODE(0x814d990)
print \func(), "\n";  # prints SCALAR(0x813aa8c)
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I guess what I've learned here is that there can be a big difference between &func and func(). I used to use them interchangably, but I will be more careful from now on.

Thanks for your help...