[rjbond3rd]

"perl -c" checks syntax without executing. (Try it and you'll see a lot of syntax errors using perl 5, so no chance of it executing -- but even if you run it under perl 3, you have nothing to fear.)

[cdman]

Careful with that. perl -c still runs the BEGIN blocks so don't rely on it for safety (ie. if you're handling untrusted code).