tina@tuxedo:~> perl -wle' my $x; # lexikalisch BEGIN { $x = 23; $y = 42; } print "x: $main::x, y: $main::y"' Name "main::x" used only once: possible typo at -e line 7. Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at -e line 7. x: , y: 42