One option is to use the built in -s flag when you run perl. From perldoc perlrun

    -s   enables rudimentary switch parsing for switches on the comman
+d line
         after the program name but before any filename arguments (or 
+before
         a --). Any switch found there is removed from @ARGV and sets 
+the
         corresponding variable in the Perl program. The following pro
+gram
         prints "1" if the program is invoked with a -xyz switch, and 
+"abc"
         if it is invoked with -xyz=abc.

             #!/usr/bin/perl -s
             if ($xyz) { print "$xyz\n" }
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/brother t0mas