> why $a remains uninitialized?

It's not the same $a

The lexical scope in the debugger is limited to the eval'ed line. Skip the my to avoid this effect.

edit

Fletch already explained it in detail

Re^3: What's happening in this expression? (Updated)

Cheers Rolf
(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery

In reply to Re^3: What's happening in this expression? by LanX
in thread What's happening in this expression? by zapdos

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