foreach my $stat (readdir ISSUE) {
        next if $stat =~ m/^0\./;   # ignore 0.tiff et cetera
        next if $stat =~ m/^\.\.?/; # ignore current and parent direct
+ory
        next unless defined $stat;  
        warn "$stat\n" if $debug;
        if ($stat =~ m/tiffcheck/) { # line 50
      
          open TIFF, "$logdir/$issue/$stat"
            or die "could not open $logdir/$issue/$stat: $!\n";

          foreach my $line (<TIFF>) {
            next if $line =~ m/Starting/;
            next unless defined $line;
            if (($line =~ m/Completed/) and !$tiffcheck) {
              $tiffcheck = (split / /, $line)[2];
            }
            else {
              $tiffcheck = "E";
            }
          }
          close TIFF or warn "error closing $logdir/$issue/$stat: $!\n
+";
        }
[download]

produces this warning:

Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at summarizePg.pl li
+ne 50.
[download]

This code has been removed from its context, so please ignore missing curlies and stuff. I provided the additional code for an idea of what is being done here. What has baffled me here <!- i dont want to hear it, tilly... -> is that i feel like I have taken every precaution against undefined and uninitialized values in this snippet -- and yet the m// is finding it uninitialized? How can this be? Is there a difference between "uninitialized" and "undefined" and perhaps "false" (i.e., 0 or "0")?

I am completely at a loss as to what is wrong here.

Thanks,
brother dep.

update:

tye and MeowChow were right. I was missing a ~ about 70 lines later in my code at an elsif. Damn difficult bug to track down!

--
Laziness, Impatience, Hubris, and Generosity.