As a two day learner of perl I've come across the following, basically I'm messing around with the examples in the O'reilly Learning Perl. Use of uninitialized value at perky-array line 38, <> chunk 1. The script still works but I get the following error when the 'loop' related to an unkown user kicks in ? Can anyone help an (obvious) initiate: 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

###@words = ("camel", "llama", "alpaca");
###
###  #or
###  #@words = qw(camel llama alpaca); # qw acts to specify "" to each
+ variable
###

### Above shows the use of an 'array' - the following describes an 'ha
+sh' 
### shown as %a (see 'pinky' for full program)

%words = qw     (
                fred    camel
                barney  llama
                betty   alpaca
                wilma   alpaca
                );

print "What is your name? ";
$name = <>;
chomp $name;

if
  ($name eq "pete")
  {
     print "Hello, $name! \n";
  }
else
  {
     print "Hello $name,\n ";
     $secretword = $words{$name};            # gets secret word

####    problem seems to start here #####

     if  ($secretword eq "")
        {$secretword = "groucho"; }
     print "What's the secret word ?\n";

     $guess = <>;
     chomp ($guess);

     while ($guess ne $secretword)
     {
       print " Niet - try again, What is the secret word ?\n";
       $guess = <>;
       chomp ($guess);

     }
  }

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Edit Masem 2001-08-22 - Code reformatting to make easier to read

In reply to Uninitialized value ? by All0uette

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