the system I need it to run on can't really be upgraded

In that case, rather than declaring the variable with our $opt_u you should (must) declare a package variable with use vars qw/$opt_u/.

Compatibility with older Perl interpreters is the main reason why I don't use our in my code.

In reply to Re:x3 Getopt::Std dies or returns empty var by grinder
in thread Getopt::Std dies or returns empty var by bonoboy

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