#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; sub defnz { my @names = split /,/, shift; my %vars; @vars{@names} = @_; for my $item (@names) { if (!defined($vars{$item}) || $vars{$item} eq '') { print STDERR Dumper(\%vars); return; } } print STDOUT "All scalars defined and non-empty\n"; return 1; # all items in list defined and non-empty } my ($foo,$bar,$baz) = ("FOO","BAR","BAZ"); defnz('$foo,$bar,$baz', $foo,$bar,$baz); ($foo,$bar,$baz) = ("FOO","BAR",""); defnz('$foo,$bar,$baz', $foo,$bar,$baz); ($foo,$bar,$baz) = ("FOO",undef,""); defnz('$foo,$bar,$baz', $foo,$bar,$baz); __END__ output: All scalars defined and non-empty $VAR1 = { '$foo' => 'FOO', '$baz' => '', '$bar' => 'BAR' }; $VAR1 = { '$foo' => 'FOO', '$baz' => '', '$bar' => undef };