use strict;

# Transform 'local' to 'my', and get rid of needless
# initialization to 'undef'
my $usefuldata = 1;  # in real life, lots of logic here
  
  if ( blah_blah() ) {
   # Eliminated second definition of $usefuldata
   $usefuldata = 2; # in real life, lots of logic here
  }
  insert_into_database($usefuldata)