C:/Perl_524/bin\perl.exe -w d:/exp/pm_signatures.pl ok 1 - one arg ok 2 - two args 1..2 Show implementation: { BEGIN {${^WARNING_BITS} = "\x54\x55\x55\x55\x55\x55\x55\x55\x55\x55\x55\x55\x55\x55\x54\x55\x05"} use strict; use feature 'signatures'; die sprintf("Too many arguments for subroutine at %s line %d.\n", (caller)[1, 2]) unless @_ <= 2; die sprintf("Too few arguments for subroutine at %s line %d.\n", (caller)[1, 2]) unless @_ >= 1; my $this = $_[0]; my $that = @_ >= 2 ? $_[1] : 'bar'; (); return scalar @_; } at d:/exp/pm_signatures.pl line 32. Compilation finished at Tue Jul 14 14:25:41