Thanks, BrowserUk. That was what I suspected would be the case...just wasn't sure if it would be undef or something else.

Your note on the complaining message from Perl had the strict warnings been in effect also tells me what I had hoped would be the case...it recognizes that there aren't the even number of entries in the list to allow it to be a 'normal hash'. Errto also noted a similar expectation (though a different message).

Thanks everyone. That really relieves my curiosity.