Why is this program valid? I was trying to create a syntax error

Perl has a syntax called "indirect method notation". It allows

Foo->new($bar)

to be written as

new Foo $bar

So that means

Syntax error ! exit 0;

is the same as

error->Syntax(! exit 0);

error->Syntax(!exit(0));

Not only is it valid syntax, it doesn't result in a run-time error because the first thing executed is exit(0).

I don't know why, but this is what Perl makes of it:

perl -MO=Deparse -w yuck
BEGIN { $^W = 1; }
use warnings;
use strict 'refs';
'error'->Syntax(!exit(0));
yuck syntax OK

It seems that the parser thinks you're calling the method Syntax on the error-object... Strange indeed!

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