Hai, In the "%random_name" hash, $bob is treated as a string if its not declare.

really?

$ perl -MO=Deparse -e '%a=($bob => "foo")'
(%a) = ($bob, 'foo');
-e syntax OK
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or

$ perl -MData::Dumper -e '%a=($bob => "foo"); print Dumper \%a'
$VAR1 = {
          '' => 'foo'
        };
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