note ikegami <p>The difference between <c> sub { ...; goto &foo; } </c> <p>and <c> sub { ...; &foo; } </c> <p>is that the stack is unwound before the call in the former and after the call in the latter. In other words, you are asking how to protect a variable in a lexical scope you explicitly exit before you need it. <p>You can't have it both ways. Either you create a scope where <c>$_</c> is protected or you destroy it, but you can't do both. 1054425 1054425