Hi perladdict,

Why don't you just try it and see?! ...

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
                                                                      
+          
# Strict
use strict;
use warnings;
                                                                      
+          
                                                                      
+          
my $x = 15;   # This is the outer $x
                                                                      
+          
{
    my $x = $x;  # This is the inner $x
    print "Location 1, x = $x\n";
    $x += 7;
    print "Location 2, x = $x\n";
}
                                                                      
+          
print "Location 3, x = $x\n";
[download]

The results are:

Location 1, x = 15
Location 2, x = 22
Location 3, x = 15
[download]

Clearly, the line my $x = $x; is creating a lexical variable $x (the first one) which starts out with the value of the "outer" $x (the second one).  It's really just like saying my $b = $a, where $a is the "outer" value, and $b is the "inner" one.

Of course, whether or not it's a good programming practice to use the same name for multiple variables is an exercise left to the reader.  ;-)

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