title: Variable declaration in BEGIN block
body: <p>In a script like the following, is it possible without dropping 'my' to effectively declare 'var' only once and have it visible outside the BEGIN block?</p>
  
  <pre><code>echo -e "\n\n\n" | \
    perl -lne 'BEGIN { my $var="declared &amp; initialized once" } print $var'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Also, why declaring var without 'my' makes it visible outside the BEGIN block?</p>