If you insist on using your no strict "refs" method it's only a matter of time before someone enters deleteAllFiles as the data type.

Those are two different matters, and yet can be related. Strictures is about enforcing dicipline on variable declarations and/or explicit namespace usage, hard references, and bareword misplace/misuse. But use strict; gives us no guarantee about malicious user input prevention. We need another step for that. And this step is independent of strict.

Nevertheless, for me, strict and warnings are just too valuable to be put aside. I wouldn't go and code without them, even if I were at the same level as merlyn, except probably in one-liners.

Damn. You're all too fast. Or is it that I'm too Slow?

Don't worry, it's not about speed^* in aswering :-) But rather, IMO, it's about correctness, accuracy, and relevancy^**, well, as far as "the right question" is concerned. I personally consider your effort has met the three.

* Of course, answering a question with the same solution as other previous answers in the same thread after a significant time potentially invites something bad.

** I was thinking about something regarding my own "bads" but couldn't recall, and I said this to remind myself. Now I remember two of them, hence this second note

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Update: Added the second footnote