Anonymous Monk,
This can be trickier than it first appears due to the fact that $increment may exist but not be numeric - pesky warnings and strictures. You also run into a problem if the $increment is not defined since looks_like_number says that an undefined value looks numeric. 
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Scalar::Util 1.10 'looks_like_number';

my $total = 4;
my $increment = 'blah';

$total += $increment || 0 if looks_like_number( $increment );

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Cheers - L~R

In reply to Re: Idiomatic Perl by Limbic~Region
in thread Idiomatic Perl by Anonymous Monk

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