Re^3: Help! My variables are jumping off a cliff!

[Jenda]

If your variables have several hundred lines wide scopes, you've got a problem. Such a variable is just very very very slightly better than an outright global.

Keep in mind that Perl has BLOCK scoping, not subroutine scoping. So a variable declared within a block (whether it's a block that belongs to a loop, an if() or just a bare block) only "exists" within that block, not in the whole subroutine. So do declare your variables in the smallest possible block and you will not have to worry about accidentally "destroying" a variable. You can (and at times should) even create blocks just to restrict the scope of a variable!

[oko1]

If your variables have several hundred lines wide scopes, you've got a problem. Such a variable is just very very very slightly better than an outright global.

Agreed, totally - and it's not an error that an experienced programmer is going to commit. But that can be said of many, if not most, errors that "warnings" catches - and we typically tell people to "always - yes, ALWAYS - enable warnings." I'm saying that this is a dangerous error, and one that should be noted and treated as such rather than some minor, optional after-thought.