By the perldoc , use Module LIST; is exactly equivalent to: BEGIN { require Module; Module->import( LIST); } Because of the BEGIN block, use is executed immediately. Therefore, it is not suitable for lazy loading of modules at runtime. use does not work with a runtime variable: C:\>perl $cgi = "CGI"; require $cgi; prin... require works: C:\>perl $cgi = 'CGI'; require "${cgi}.pm"; ... Also, file extension is required if require is not passed a bareword: // this works require CGI; // so does th...

Variable Meaning $_ The default or implicit variable. @_ Within a subroutine the array @_ contains the parameters passed to that subroutine. $a, $b Special package variables when using sort() $<digit> Contains the subpattern from the corresponding set of capturing parentheses from the last pattern match, not counting patterns matched in nested blocks that have been exited already. $. Current line number for the last filehandle accessed. $/ The input record separator, newline by default. $| If set to nonzero, forces a flush right away and after every write or print on the currently selected output channel. Default is 0 (regardless of whether the channel is really buffered by the system or not; $| tells you only whether you've asked Perl explicitly to flush after...

@INC is a list of directories Perl uses to find modules to load. You can add directories to @INC by use lib... , or set the PERLLIB environment variable: # using default @INC use Net::Socket::NonBl...