This appears to be documented in perlref according to Steve Grazzini on p5p:
*foo{THING} returns undef if that particular THING hasn't been used yet, except in the case of scalars. *foo{SCALAR} returns a reference to an anonymous scalar if $foo hasn't been used yet. This might change in a future release.

This implies to me it might get changed for 5.10. But I certainly wouldn't count on it. And I certainly would not expect a bug fix for 5.8.2 soon.

Liz

In reply to Re: Symbol Table entry always return defined for {SCALAR}!!! by liz
in thread Symbol Table entry always return defined for {SCALAR}!!! by gmpassos

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