i tend to do that inline, too: 
my $numb = '';
print 5 + ($numb||0); # no warning

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I also do the same thing to avoid "Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string" warnings: 
print "==> Foo: " . ($s || '') . "<===\n";

[download]

In reply to Re^2: "" isn't numeric... by davidrw
in thread "" isn't numeric... by moltar512

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