note Lotus1 <p>If all the OP's examples use the global <c>$_</c> then printing it at the end would show the last value assigned. What actually happens is a warning for 'Use of uninitialized value $_ ...' The subroutine uses whatever $_ that is in scope when it is called. </p> <c> use warnings; use strict; sub abc() { $_ = 'x'; } foreach(1..2) { my $loopvar = 'in the loop'; print "Before:$_\n"; abc(); print "After:$_\n"; } print "\$_ = $_\n"; # warning for uninitialized value $_ (global scope) abc(); print "\$_ = $_\n"; # prints $_ = x </c> 1005679 1005709