Despite not being a native English speaker, I'm familiar with the meaning of enclosing

Gah. If ive insulted you then I apologise unreservedly. I certainly had no intention of doing so.

So, what kind of scope do you think it is (in relation to $")?

Not an enclosing one. To me file level scope can not really be considered to be an enclosing scope. Sure its a scope, buts its hardly an enclosed one. To me enclosure requires a fence of some sort, as the definition says it must be "surrounded on all sides, fenced in to prevent common use". A file isnt surrounded on all sides, whereas a block is.

To use an analogy from geography: the island Great Britian could be construed as a scope, yet it can hardly be construed as enclosed (by anything other than the sea that is), whereas my aunt and uncles property can be. In other words I see a file as being like an island, and a block like a fenced in field. (And a package like a country. The more i think about this analogy the more i like it :-) The island represents a scope but is not really enclosed, but it can contain any number of enclosures.

Anyway, I dont mean to play word games with you, just to explain the spirit or sense in which i used the term "enclosing scope". And if you reread my original post you'll see I used the phrase "And doesnt have any potential for accidental action at a distance which is what you get by setting any of the punction vars without localizing them as tightly as possible" (italics added of course). Which I think at least shows that im not trying to wriggle off the hook here :-)

If you follow the analogy further, and island can grow or shrink without really changing its nature (its still an island). But for an enclosure to grow or shrink somebody has to move the fence. Likewise with files and blocks. A block doesnt get bigger unless you move the braces (even if your editor does it for you :-). A file gets bigger by just adding a new line to the end. Nothing physicial (in a digital context) has to move.

Cheers,

I'd say the island and the fenced in area are very similar. Moving a fence doesn't change the nature of the fenced in area (unless you let the fence intersect with itself). As for the island growing or shrinking, well, that means you have to move the sea. Just like you have to move the fence. No difference.

As for adding a new line to the end of the file, the end-of-file point moves - just like the closing brace "moves" if you add a line to the end of the block. The fact that in some OSses there isn't an end-of-file byte because it can be determined by another piece of information kept by the OS isn't relevant - that happens on a far lower level than Perl.

A file is a block that follows the same scoping rules as blocks bound by braces.

Abigail