Hello clueless newbie,

Glad you found a solution. I just want to comment on this:

#use strict;                     # made redundant by use 5.014_00
#use warnings;                   # made redundant by use 5.014_00
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The first comment is correct; but the second most certainly is not!

 0:23 >perl -e "print $x;"

 0:24 >perl -we "print $x;"
Name "main::x" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1.
Use of uninitialized value $x in print at -e line 1.

 0:24 >perl -M5.014 -e "print $x;"
Global symbol "$x" requires explicit package name (did you forget to d
+eclare "my $x"?) at -e line 1.
Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.

 0:24 >perl -M5.014 -e "my $x; print $x;"

 0:24 >perl -M5.014 -we "my $x; print $x;"
Use of uninitialized value $x in print at -e line 1.

 0:24 >
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From use:

use VERSION also lexically enables all features available in the requested version as defined by the feature pragma, disabling any features not in the requested version's feature bundle.... Similarly, if the specified Perl version is greater than or equal to 5.12.0, strictures are enabled lexically as with use strict.

(See feature#FEATURE-BUNDLES for a list of the features associated with each Perl version.) The warnings pragma must be enabled explicitly — either via the lexical use warnings;, which is the preferred method; or via a -w command line switch; or by setting the global $^W variable to a true value (not usually recommended).

Hope that helps,