I'll agree with Zaxo on the fact that you shouldn't be using reserved words as variables/sub names. As far as using local to scope a global, most people recommend against using it since it can confuse the flow of a program. Though using it is fully valid if you want to make your $error a global. I would suggest the following solution:

sub execute {
  my $error = $s->$error if ($count > 0);
  ## log this action
  &log_action($error) if ($count > 0);
  # just pass the $error var to &log_action
}

sub log_action {
  my $i = shift;

  if ($i) {
    print "\n$i\n\n";
    print FH "$format $error";
  }
}
[download]

Hope that does the trick for you.

BlackJudas