>perl -wMstrict -MO=Deparse,-p -e "my $c = shift @ARGV; ;; sub main() { print qq{cmp Compare:\n}; print 'a' cmp 'b'.qq{\n}; print 'b' cmp 'a'.qq{\n}; print 'a' cmp 'a'.qq{\n}; ;; print 'a' cmp 'b'.$c; } " BEGIN { $^W = 1; } use strict 'refs'; (my $c = shift(@ARGV)); sub main () { use strict 'refs'; print("cmp Compare:\n"); print((-1)); print(1); print((-1)); print(('a' cmp ('b' . $c))); } -e syntax OK