The || operator evaluates '0' as false. You appear from your comments to want to check the length rather than the Perl logical value, e.g.:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use CGI qw/:standard/;
my $q = new CGI;
    
my $choice = param('choice');
length( $choice ) or $choice = 1;

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-M

Free your mind

In reply to Re: param = 0, not NULL by Moron
in thread param = 0, not NULL by Spenser

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