> but I find this kind of inelegant.

well, how would you do it in other "more elegant languages"?

> I'm far far from a monk so bear with me, but I can't see why keys doesn't provide list context.

keys HASH operates on the datatype hash not list, which means something starting with a % sigil here

> "Experimental keys on scalar is now forbidden"

that's another topic which wouldn't have helped you much, but you "probably" would have been able to write keys {f()}

Questions are:

• why do you return a list anyway? why not a hash-ref?

  sub f { {a=>1,b=>2} }

• if it has to be a list and you want more elegance why not defining your elegant helper

  sub lkeys { keys %{{@_}} }

HTH! :)

edit

my preferred way to gain elegance would be a private method, operating on a reference

my $keys = sub { my $self =shift; keys %$self };

sub f {
    return { a=>1, b =>2 }
}

print for f->$keys;
[download]

edit

> Also, is there a way of creating a hash for consumption by keys in the above situation which doesn't involve creating a hash reference from a list and then immediately dereferencing?

could you please elaborate? I don't understand the question ...

update

see also Re^10: Using 'keys' on a list (prototype & backwards compatibility) for a full explanation why your feature request can't possibly be implemented.

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