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in reply to Using & in function calls

&snafu, as you have it, without parentheses, is actually even more magical: It passes the current @_ toshares the current @_ with the function called. Which you rarely, if ever, want.

(Updated: Yeah, that's better. lodin++.)

The &snafu(@args), &snafu(), and &snafu forms are useful in very rare situations, and the & is a nice flag for just those instances: When I see it in my code, I know I'm doing something strange. Which is also useful.

So yeah, not just aesthetics. Compelling enough? You make the call. But my recommendation for &-form calls is as for prototypes:

Don't use it if you don't mean it!

print "Just another Perl ${\(trickster and hacker)},"
The Sidhekin proves Sidhe did it!

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Re^2: Using & in function calls (&foo != foo(@_))
by lodin (Hermit) on Sep 29, 2007 at 16:08 UTC

    It passes the current @_ to the function called.

    This is probably just a matter of wording, but I'd say it's sharing @_. &foo and foo(@_) are not equivalent. An example: 

    sub foo1 { &bar;    print "@_\n"; }
sub foo2 { bar(@_); print "@_\n"; }

sub bar { shift }

foo1(1, 2, 3);
foo2(1, 2, 3);

__END__
2 3
1 2 3

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