In a previous reply (Re: Use of BEGIN block) , pfaut suggested using BEGIN and END blocks with the Command Switch n . Here is a complete example. 

#!perl -n
use strict;
use warnings;
# USAGE:  perl np.pl <np.dat
BEGIN{
    our $total = 0;
}

our $total;
$total += $_;

END{
    our $total;
    print $total
}

[download]

Note that the package variable $total is in scope in all three blocks because it is declared in each with our. Is there a preferred way to do this? I understand that without strict, no declaration is necessary and with the use vars syntax, there is no restriction on scope.

Bill

In reply to Initialize variable in BEGIN by BillKSmith

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