When the . operator is used to signify that the result of the previous line the repl does not seem to be aware of the previous operation so puppet concludes the code is a syntax error.
Example:
1:>> $var1 = [1,2,3,4]
=> [
[0] 1,
[1] 2,
[2] 3,
[3] 4
]
2:>> .map | $num | { notice($num) }
=> Syntax error at '.' at line 1:1
This is happening because the parser that checks for multiline is not aware of the scope.