Re^2: About "state" variables in Perl 5.10

The main difference I see is that the initialization of state variables only happens when the function is called

Yes, that is a good difference. Thanks!

Consider also:

print counter(), "\n";
{   
    my $count = 0;
    sub counter { $count++ }
}
print counter(), "\n";
__END__
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This one is easy to overcome, just putting the code in a BEGIN block:

print counter(), "\n";
BEGIN{   
    my $count = 0;
    sub counter { $count++ }
}
print counter(), "\n";
__END__
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0
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