Not really what you wanted, eh? But, I recommend it because you really want to write:

isInRange( $cntFiles, 'Number of Files',
    $minFiles, $maxFiles );
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Something more like what you want would be:

isInRange( *test_me, $min, $max );
sub isInRange {
    my( $glob, $min, $max )= @_;
    my $val= $$glob;
    my $name= substr($glob,1);
    if(  $val < $min  ) {
        die "\$$name is less than $min.\n"
    } elsif(  $max < $val  ) {
        die "\$$name is more than $max.\n"
    } else {
        return 1;
    }
    return !1;
}
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Then there is the C preprocessor option... Actually, it isn't really much of an option. Nevermind. Trust me; you don't even want to know.

You cannot pass a variable to a function (whether it be by value or by reference) and know its name at the same time. You can, however, pass a string that represents the name of the variable, and then evaluate the string to get its value.

#! perl -w

use strict;

use vars qw/$foo/;
$foo = 3;
my $bar = 4;

sub reality_test {
    my ( $var_name , $bound ) = @_;
    my $var = eval $var_name;
    die "$var_name is not syntactically correct: $@\n" if $@;

    print "'$var_name' was less than allowed\n"
        if $var < $bound;
}

reality_test( '$foo' , 10 );
reality_test( '$bar' , 10 );
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That's a sort of a weird thing to do, but hey, what ever gets you through the night...

The trouble is you have to use the non-standard convention of passing the variable name in a string. You may remember to do this, but you will not endear yourself to your coworkers. If you forget to pass a string, and pass a variable instead, it still works correctly, but the script no longer prints out the name of the variable but rather its value.

sub reality_test {
    do {
        my $testme=shift;
        #do tests
        print "$testme was less than allowed\n" if test fails;
    } while(@_);
}
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(argh, Opera managed to munge that a bit. corrected)

--
Me spell chucker work grate. Knead grandma chicken.

sub reality_test {
    my ( $var_name , $min , $max ) = @_;
    eval "print q($var_name is out of range !) if $var_name < $min or 
+$var_name > $max"
} 

reality_test( '$foo' , 10 , 30 );
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print "'$test_me' was less than allowed";
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