The "my" is used to declare variables (see eibwen's post).

You should also include this: 
  use strict;
  use warnings;

[download]
at the top of your scripts -- what these will do is enforce (or warn) about certain things that will save you lots of trouble in the long-run, and point out compiling problems. Check out the manpages for each ("man strict", "man warnings") for more details. Something it is especially useful for is enforcing variable declarations:
This will run, but NOT do what you want: 
  $myvariable = 3;
  print "Pi is exactly $myvaraible";

[download]
This code, however, will give a very informative error message if you try to run it: 
  use strict; 
  my $myvariable = 3;
  print "Pi is exactly $myvaraible";

[download]

In reply to Re^3: Search Script by davidrw
in thread Search Script by arebc

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.