$ perl -le " use strict; use diagnostics; my $peter; print scalar @$peter; Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at -e line 1 (#1) (F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors. Uncaught exception from user code: Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at -e line 1.