From an internals point of view, they are different because keys() gives its operand deref-hv context, but a plain scalar context hash deref doesn't.

Nobody said this stuff was consistent! :)

Though I could argue that keys() is a write operation (it resets the hash iterator), and write operations should autovivify while read operations should not.

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In reply to Re: Keys() required to autovivify? by ysth
in thread Keys() required to autovivify? by jrw

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