Hi all.

I am trying to create constant hashrefs that contain other constant hashrefs. I am using subs to do this because it fits the style. What I am finding is rather odd behavior, the type changes for the 3rd constant in this snippet: 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

sub make_hashref {{
    foo => 'bar',
}}

sub make_hashref2 {{
    boo => 'too',
    %{ make_hashref() },
}}

sub make_hashref3 {{
    %{ make_hashref() },
    boo => 'too',
}}

print Dumper make_hashref();
print Dumper make_hashref2();
print Dumper make_hashref3();

[download]
The first 2 hashrefs display as expected: 
$VAR1 = {
          'foo' => 'bar'
        };
$VAR1 = {
          'foo' => 'bar',
          'boo' => 'too'
        };

[download]
But the 3rd one is no longer a reference: 
$VAR1 = 'foo';
$VAR2 = 'bar';
$VAR3 = 'boo';
$VAR4 = 'too';

[download]
As far as I know, there should be no difference between 2 and 3. I find that if I explicitly `return' the hashref in example 3, it functions properly. Is there a subtlety that I am missing? Is this a bug?

This is perl, v5.6.1 built for sun4-solaris-64int

In reply to Constant Hashref Strangeness by narse

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