Global doesn't contradict the use of use strict. Global only means "having a large scope". There are several ways of dealing with this. If all the subroutines, and any other code that needs to touch this variable are in the same file, you can just put a my $variable at the top of the file. Otherwise, you need to use a package variable. Either use the package name in combination with the variable name, or introduce the variable with use vars or our, and strict will be happy.

Or you could just put a no strict before the code that accesses the variable.

Abigail