I haven't checked the sources, but empirical evidence made it clear...

This is one of the single most dangerous statements you can make. Perl is a programming language, not an archaeological dig or a physics experiment. Use the docs and, when they prove inadequate, read the source and check with p5p to see if what you found happens on purpose or accidentally.

Assuming "found" behaviour will persist in future versions of perl is just asking for bizarre bugs and major breakage later on--if it's not documented to work a particular way, you shouldn't assume that it will. (And yes, I know perl's docs are insufficiently rigorous to really make this statement about any of its behaviours, but the point still holds--if you had to experiment to find behaviours, and can't find reference to them in the docs, you shouldn't count on the behaviours)

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