Great answers thanks. Thats a bit weird to me, that a variable can be either/or, but Ive got it now. Heres how its used in my code. Not sure if using chop is good practice, but it works.......... 
my ($function, $sourcedir, $targetdir) = @ARGV;
die ": missing operand. Usage: $0 <OPTION>... <SOURCE_DIRECTORY>... [T
+ARGET_DIRECTORY]...
OPTION all the FILE(s) and DIRECTORIES:
-c = copy or -cy = copy overwrite
-m = move or -my = move with overwrite
-d = delete
\n" unless (defined $function && defined $sourcedir); #@ARGV;

#check validity input
opendir(my $source_handle, $sourcedir) or die "Can't opendir $sourcedi
+r: $!\n";
my $overwrite = 0 + (length $function>2) && $function =~ m/..y/ ;
#strip last character ($overwrite now instantiated; no need for 'y')
chop($function);

[download]

In reply to Re^2: Length of String by bigal_george
in thread Length of String by bigal_george

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.