In a nutshell :my does not declare a package variable. use vars does. There's a wealth of information on this topic in the Tutorials section of the site (subsection "variables"); I'll plug my Variable Scoping in Perl: the basics and Dominus' Coping With Scoping specifically.

update adjusted the link to CwS to point directly to it.

If not P, what? Q maybe?
"Sidney Morgenbesser"