undef in numeric context evaluates to 0, so your example of summing up a bunch of lengths will still work identically (although the warning that is generated is now "Use of uninitialized value in addition (+)" instead of "Use of uninitialized value in length". Also, if you want to suppress the warning, previously you had to do "(defined($str) && length($str)) || 0", where now you can do just "length($str) || 0", since passing undef to length no longer warns. I'm inclined to close this ticket, unless anyone can see anything here that should be done. -doy --- via perlbug: queue: perl5 status: open https://rt.perl.org:443/rt3/Ticket/Display.html?id=88740Thread Previous