I understand local went out with the goto statement. True?

Certainly false. Just yesterday I wrote:

    local $Opt{debug} = 1;
    some_function();
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It is in just such sitations that local shines. Here’s another:

    local $SIG{INT} = "IGNORE";
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And another:

    @paragraphs = do { local $/ = q(); <FH> };
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Despite the general usefulness of compile-time scoping, there are still times when you want run-time scoping. For example, exception blocks are run-time scoped.