Dear Monks,

Please enlightment me as to the following Perl confusion:

Take a hash construction such as:

my %args = (
   'keyA' => 'valueA',
   'keyB' => get_value_b(),
   'keyC' => 'valueC'
);

[download]

Now if get_value_b returns an "undef" (e.x. "return undef;") everything works as expected.

When the get_value_b function returns, nothing (i.e. "return;"), the hash gets thwaked, and ends up constructed as if it was written:

'keyA' => 'valueA',
'keyB' => 'keyC',
'valueC' => undef

So the question is, is this a bug, or a feature?

In reply to Bug or Feature? Hash construct and non-value returning functions. by lionsburg

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