That error usually indicates a missing semi-colon after the previous statement.

>perl -e"my $x = 1    if (foo()) { bar() }"
syntax error at -e line 1, near ") {"
Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.

>perl -e"my $x = 1    for (foo()) { bar() }"
syntax error at -e line 1, near ") {"
Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.
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