Question

Could someone kindly point me why this snippet is not compiled:

my $crond = "/etc/init.d/crond";
if( -e $crond ) {
    my $d = "d";
}
my $crond = "/etc/init.d/cron$d";

Error:

"my" variable $crond masks earlier declaration in same scope at /home/andrew/sandbox/processes2cron.pl line 27.
Global symbol "$d" requires explicit package name at /home/andrew/sandbox/processes2cron.pl line 27.

I tried different variations with ‘my’ but still the scope is defined uncorrectly. Thanks.

Answer 1

my $crond = "/etc/init.d/crond";
my $d;
if( -e $crond ) {
    $d = "d";
}
$crond = "/etc/init.d/cron$d";

It’s just as the error message says. You’re redeclaring $cron within the same scope, and $d is only defined within the if block, so the compiler expects $d to be a global variable when you use it on the last line, and complains when it can’t find it.