What is the difference between my and local in Perl?

Question

I am seeing both of them used in this script I am trying to debug and the literature is just not clear. Can someone demystify this for me?

Answer 1

Well Google really works for you on this one: http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=94007

From the link:

Quick summary: 'my' creates a new variable, 'local' temporarily amends the value of a variable.

ie, 'local' temporarily changes the value of the variable, but only within the scope it exists in.

Generally use my, it's faster and doesn't do anything kind of weird.