You are allowed to use predeclared subroutines without parenthesis, but the docs don't say that you always get the same result as with parens

You're right ... being "allowed" to do something doesn't mean anything more than it "won't produce a fatal error". (Got suckered by that one ;-)

Not that I'm interested in pursuing the matter, but I think the documentation *could* have taken the extra step of warning that removing the parens could cause unexpected results. I see other documentation that takes that extra step, and I (fallaciously) start to believe that if the docs don't mention any traps then there aren't any.

Thanks to all respondents.

Cheers,
Rob