According to say, say is shorthand for { local $\ = "\n"; print LIST }. Consistent with that perltie says that the PRINT method of a tied handle gets called for both print $some_tied_handle and say $some_tied_handle:

PRINT this, LIST

This method will be triggered every time the tied handle is printed to with the print() or say() functions...

However, it seems that when a handle is tied, PRINT is called but local $\="\n" isn't done beforehand. Instead, whatever value of $\ was available before the call to say is used and never overridden. Here is some sample code that demonstrates the issue:

{
  package Foo;

  sub TIEHANDLE {
    my ($sClass, $fh)  = @_;
    return bless([$fh], $sClass);
  }

  sub PRINT {
    my $self = shift;
    my $fh = $self->[0];
    CORE::print $fh "tied to $self:", @_;
  }
}

my $x=gensym;
tie *$x, 'Foo', \*STDOUT;

local $\="\n***\n";
say "Not tied: I'm just saying ...";
say $x "I'm just saying ...";

# outputs (note that say $x is followed by "\n***\n"
# not "\n"
#
# Not tied: I'm just saying ...
# tied to Foo=ARRAY(0x8197ed0):I'm just saying ...
# ***
[download]

Am I doing something wrong? Is there some trick to making say $some_tied_handle ... act like say STDOUT ...? Or is this a bug? If it is a well known a bug, I didn't have much luck finding it using a general google search. Is there a better way to check to see if a bug is a known perl bug?

Platform is Debian (Lenny) perl=5.10.0

Update: Replaced broken shortcut with explict http link, in light of toolic's reply below.