moritz, thanks for correcting me - you are right, it is a warning, not an error - that was a typo that percolated as I was doing my copy/paste. I might not be understanding you correctly and am still unsure why I can't make a sub call in block form. I am pretty sure this would work: eval { mySub("hello world"); }
eval <mystring> doesn't work when I have "" in the sub in the XML. I am unsure if I am not escaping/interpolating the "" correctly.

My first thought was to try what javafan had and it just does not return anything upon evaluation. I then tried many different things to no avail. If I hard code the direct calls in my Perl script it works either ways.

almut, thank you for your input. I don't believe prototyping to be an issue here. Don't you think the direct call should also not have worked in that case?

I don't believe prototyping to be an issue here.

Maybe.  What I meant is probably best expressed with a simple snippet of code, which resembles in essence what I understood you're trying to do (but without the XML and stuff):

my $code = << 'EOC';
sub mySub() {
    print "args: @_\n";
}
EOC

eval $code;

print qq(\ncalling 'mySub()'\n);
eval 'mySub()';
print "error: $@" if $@;

print qq(\ncalling 'mySub("hello world")'\n);
eval 'mySub("hello world")';
print "error: $@" if $@;
[download]

Running this gives:

calling 'mySub()'
args: 

calling 'mySub("hello world")'
error: Too many arguments for main::mySub at (eval 3) line 2, near ""h
+ello world")
[download]

As you can see, the second call (with arguments) fails with the prototype in place.  And it fails silently, unless you check $@.

Thanks again almut. I understand and agree with what you are saying. I checked for the errors and this is what I got "error: Can't find string terminator '"' anywhere before EOF at (eval 5) line 1."

This made me realize that even though I might be quoting the arguments string in the code posted here correctly, I wasn't doing that right in the actual code where I also needed to first escape both $ in my hash to be \$\$myHash. Adding that extra stuff fixed it. I didn't even think that was the problem - there's a duh! moment. :)

While I am not sure why I wasn't getting the "Too many arguments..." error in my direct call to mySub("Hello world"), it is likely I would have got that error once I actually quoted my string right in the eval. I added the direct call in your code to highlight what I am saying about not getting the error when making the direct call:

my $code = << 'EOC';
sub mySub() {
    print "args: @_\n";
}
EOC

eval $code;

print qq(\ncalling 'mySub()'\n);
eval 'mySub()';
print "error: $@" if $@;

print qq(\ncalling 'mySub("hello world")' directly\n);
mySub("hello world");

print qq(\ncalling 'mySub("hello world")'\n);
eval 'mySub("hello world")';
print "error: $@" if $@;
[download]

Running this returned:

calling 'mySub()'
args:

calling 'mySub("hello world")' directly
args: hello world

calling 'mySub("hello world")'
error: Too many arguments for main::mySub at (eval 3) line 2, near ""h
+ello world")"
[download]