use of uninitialized value in concatenation

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm using this code to get a url using LWP::Simple

one of the arguments I use is being input from command line when the perl script is starting. Since I'm using this script as a helper for a larger c++ app, there isn't much code:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use LWP::Simple;
use strict;

my $word=$_;

my $url="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=$word";
my $html=get $url;
open(HTMLTRANS,">./htmlTransfer.lib");
print HTMLTRANS "$html";
close(HTMLTRANS);
[download]

thats all

when I run the script like this: perl getURL.pl test

I get the error uninitialized value in concatenation

I know the url I'm creating is correct, and I can't figure out where th error is coming from

any help?

Updated Steve_p - added code tags

Comment on use of uninitialized value in concatenation Download Code

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Re: use of uninitialized value in concatenation by William G. Davis (Friar) on Jan 04, 2005 at 02:55 UTC
I think you want: `my $word=shift;` instead of: `my $word=$_;` Outside of a subroutine, shift removes the first element from the @ARGV array, which usually contains program arguments (like C and C++'s "argv" parameter to main()).	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: use of uninitialized value in concatenation by borisz (Canon) on Jan 04, 2005 at 02:58 UTC
The error is `my $word = $_; # I guess word is undefined here my $url="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=$word";` [download] perhaps you want `my $word = $ARGV[0] \|\| '';` Boris	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: use of uninitialized value in concatenation by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Jan 04, 2005 at 03:00 UTC
Try, `my $word = shift;` I doubt if $_ is defined at that point, and I figure you want to get it from @ARGV. You should also test the success of `get`. After Compline, Zaxo	[reply] [d/l]
Re: use of uninitialized value in concatenation by tinita (Parson) on Jan 04, 2005 at 09:25 UTC
additionally you can save opening the file yourself. getstore() instead of get() will do that for you. for explanation of errors/warnings it's always a good idea to look up perldiag	[reply]