$ perl -wle'my $x = !1; print "".$x; print 0+$x;' 0 $ perl -wle'my $x = ""; print "".$x; print 0+$x;' Argument "" isn't numeric in addition (+) at -e line 1. 0 $ perl -wle'my $x = 0; print "".$x; print 0+$x;' 0 0