Hm, if I understand this correctly - awkward function argument syntax: my ($x, $y) = @_; then you might be interested to learn about feature 'signatures':

Hm, if I understand this correctly - awkward function argument syntax: my ($x, $y) = @_; then you might be interested to learn about feature 'signatures': use feature 'signatures'; use strict; use warnings; sub foobar ($foo, $bar = undef) { # do something smart } # call it: foobar(1); foobar(1, 2); Not sure when it was added, but when I write the usual glue code, I love to use it these days.