$ perl -le' use warnings; use strict; package Foo; # this creates a package called Foo my $Foo::bar = "Hello World"; ' "my" variable $Foo::bar can't be in a package at -e line 6, near "my $Foo::bar " Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors. #### $ perl -le' use warnings; use strict; package Foo; # this creates a package called Foo $Foo::bar = "Hello World"; package main; # goes back to default package of class print $Foo::bar; # this prints $bar form package Foo ' Hello World