I don't think strict does what you think it does. There's no need to pre-declare variables or functions (subs) in Perl. However, strict will complain about you using global variables without explicit package names. All you have to do is use lexically-scoped variables. It does this for very good reasons.

Or, in other words, when you first use a variable, use my:

my $xml = new XML::Simple;
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When we advocate use strict;, we do so with good reason and as a result of vast experience. Personally -- I've been screwed over a few times because I was too lazy to work with strict in place. And vicariously -- we've all helped folks solve problems that would have been entirely avoided with the use of strict and warnings.

So please, use strict; use warnings; -- it really will help you learn good Perl more quickly!

Thanks for all the help. The final code is posted below, well a base functionality skeleton is at least, including the trial SNMPget call. It returns a hash instead of a value, but at least now I know that the communication syntax is correct. If anyone has hints as to how to get a value instead of a hash out of the call, that would be appreciated. Here's the code now, with "use strict" enabled.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

#modules used
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;
use Net::SNMP;
our ($data, $xml, $e, $Host, $OID, $port, $value, $IPAddressA, $sessio
+n, $error);
#create object
$xml = new XML::Simple;
# MIB Hard value taken from parameters of the DC1 fab port pairs scrip
+t appended a 1 to test port #1
$OID = ".1.3.6.1.4.1.289.2.1.1.2.3.1.1.152.1"; 
#checking against PD110 as a test run will probably be read from an XM
+L input file in the future
$Host = "10.2.125.110";
# read the XML file
$data = $xml->XMLin("FabPortPairs.xml");

#print Dumper($data);
foreach $e (@{$data->{PairedDevices}})
    #Do actions that require use of XML data in this loop possibly
    #call SNMP data gathering and reporting
    {
        print "Pairname is: " . $e->{PairName} . "\n  ";
        print "Hosted Apps are: " . $e->{HostedApplication} . "\n" ;
        print "HostOS is: " . $e->{HostOS} . "\n";
    $IPAddressA = $e->{DeviceA}->{IPAddress} ;
        print "Var name for IpAddressA is " . $IPAddressA . "\n";
    
    }

##test SNMP code

print "SNMP test run \n";
($session,$error) = Net::SNMP->session(Hostname => $Host,
                                       Community => "public");
die "session error: $error" unless ($session);

$value = $session->get_request($OID);

die "request error " . session->error unless (defined $value);

$session->close;

print "port info: " . $value . "\n";
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