map {; ... } LIST

https://github.com/rjbs/App-Uni/blob/master/bin/uni#L12

@ARGV = map {; decode('UTF-8', $_) } @ARGV;

上記 map {; のセミコロンの意味がわからずもやもやしていた。

そんな中、まさにそれの説明が perlfunc.pod に追加された。

http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/commitdiff/24fe90a14d91f512527a158a02ea19d502723856

"{" starts both hash references and blocks, so "map { ..." could be
either the start of map BLOCK LIST or map EXPR, LIST. Because Perl
doesn't look ahead for the closing "}" it has to take a guess at
which it's dealing with based on what it finds just after the "{".
Usually it gets it right, but if it doesn't it won't realize
something is wrong until it gets to the "}" and encounters the
missing (or unexpected) comma. The syntax error will be reported
close to the "}", but you'll need to change something near the "{"
such as using a unary "+" or semicolon to give Perl some help:

    %hash = map {  "\L$_" => 1  } @array # perl guesses EXPR. wrong
    %hash = map { +"\L$_" => 1  } @array # perl guesses BLOCK. right
    %hash = map {; "\L$_" => 1  } @array # this also works
    %hash = map { ("\L$_" => 1) } @array # as does this
    %hash = map {  lc($_) => 1  } @array # and this.
    %hash = map +( lc($_) => 1 ), @array # this is EXPR and works!

    %hash = map  ( lc($_), 1 ),   @array # evaluates to (1, @array)

or to force an anon hash constructor use "+{":

    @hashes = map +{ lc($_) => 1 }, @array # EXPR, so needs
                                           # comma at end

to get a list of anonymous hashes each with only one entry apiece.

つまり、map {} の {} はブロックにも無名ハッシュリファレンスにも解釈可能だから、ブロックだと解釈させたいときはmap {; ... } LIST などを使うとよい。