Fellow Monks,

I've thinking about the BEGIN block today - and whether or not it returns it's contents. I did a quick experiment that doesn't really conclude anything except that perl doesn't want to play along.

Here is what I'm simulating:
#!/usr/bin/perl

sleep 4;
BEGIN { $anon = time }
print "timespan: " . (time - $anon); # shows 4

[download]
And here's how I think it should be able to work: 
#!/usr/bin/perl

sleep 4;
print "timespan: " . (time - BEGIN{time}); # should show 4

[download]
But I get this error:
Can't call method "BEGIN" without a package or object reference at timemachine.pl line 4.

Is there a way to make it do what I want? What exactly is it complaining about there? I tried doing it inside a package, but alas. It was to no avail.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

In reply to Can / Do BEGIN blocks return their evaluated content? by dynamo

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