$ perl -e " use diagnostics; my $c = $c; " Name "main::c" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1 (#1) (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The our declaration is provided for this purpose. NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c, %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning. #### $ perl -e " use diagnostics; my $c = $c; my $c = $c; " "my" variable $c masks earlier declaration in same scope at -e line 1 (#1) (W misc) A "my", "our" or "state" variable has been redeclared in the current scope or statement, effectively eliminating all access to the previous instance. This is almost always a typographical error. Note that the earlier variable will still exist until the end of the scope or until all closure referents to it are destroyed. Name "main::c" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1 (#2) (W once) Typographical errors often show up as unique variable names. If you had a good reason for having a unique name, then just mention it again somehow to suppress the message. The our declaration is provided for this purpose. NOTE: This warning detects symbols that have been used only once so $c, @c, %c, *c, &c, sub c{}, c(), and c (the filehandle or format) are considered the same; if a program uses $c only once but also uses any of the others it will not trigger this warning.