I'm using $q in the global, so having it vanish in the subroutine would be interesting indeed. Added that check line, but no joy. Just now I had a case where

<li><strong>orderby</strong></li>
<ul>
<li>10</li>
</ul>
<li><strong>desc</strong></li>
<ul>
<li>1</li>
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yet

<!-- variables (index, desc) are (10, ) -->
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The previous instance of the CGI variable would have correctly had the desc parameter undefined, but *this* one seems to be set.