/home/alex>perl -Mstrict -w -E 'say fileno(STDERR); say fileno("STDERR"); say fileno("stderr"); say fileno("foobar")//"undef"; say fileno($_)//"undef" for (qw( STDERR stderr foo ))' Name "main::foobar" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1. 2 2 2 undef 2 2 undef /home/alex>