Take a look at the documentation (Getopt::Std). The opt_x either need to be global or if you don't like globals, the second arg is a reference to a hash that will contain the options. The getopt function doesn't have a return value. 

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Getopt::Std;

our( $opt_u );
getopt('u');
die "no u option passed\n" unless $opt_u;
print "username is $opt_u\n";

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-derby

In reply to Re: Getopt::Std dies or returns empty var by derby
in thread Getopt::Std dies or returns empty var by bonoboy

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