Your probably right podMaster, but the link you gave refers to the warning being issued when a single my variable is being declared without parens, which has always been legal, so the message in that case is spurious. Whereas in the case I described, there are 5 vars being declared in the same statement, which as far as I know does require the parens.

Ie.

P:\>perl58 -we"my $x,$y, $z;"
Parentheses missing around "my" list at -e line 1.
Useless use of a variable in void context at -e line 1.
Useless use of a variable in void context at -e line 1.
Name "main::y" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1.
Name "main::z" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1.
[download]

Admittedly, without the -w, this examples compiles and would run were it had anything to do, but I beleive that the string of warnings issued indicate that this code is equivalent to

my($x); 
$y;
$z;
[download]

Or in the case that I cited, it may well be that the author intended this line

 my $name,$serial,$maxlen,$flags,$fstype; to be equivalent to

P:\>perl58 -mO=Deparse,-p -we" my $name,$serial,$maxlen,$flags,$fstype
+;"
Parentheses missing around "my" list at -e line 1.
Useless use of a variable in void context at -e line 1.
Useless use of a variable in void context at -e line 1.
Useless use of a variable in void context at -e line 1.
Useless use of a variable in void context at -e line 1.
Name "main::serial" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1.
Name "main::maxlen" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1.
Name "main::flags" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1.
Name "main::fstype" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1.
BEGIN { $^W = 1; }
(my($name), $serial, $maxlen, $flags, $fstype);
-e syntax OK
[download]

in which case I apologise to him unreservedly :)