My question is whether you should be concerned with scope if $new_mail needs to be shared between sub update_mail_list and sub read_mail_list etc.
One trick I sometimes use to share a variable among multiple subroutines, without making it a package variable is to enclose all of them in a block. 
{
    my $new_mail;

    sub update_mail_list
    {
        # uses $new_mail
    }

    sub read_mail_list
    {
        # uses $new_mail
    }
}

[download]
What do monks think about this style?

Thanks,
/prakash

In reply to Re: Whether to use local() by PrakashK
in thread Whether to use local() by jerrygarciuh

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