perlscoping.pl

#! /usr/local/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use warnings;
for ( my $i=0 ; $i<5 ; $i++ ) {
    my $var;
    sub returnvar { return $var; }
    $var = $i;
    print "\$i=$i, \$var=$var, returnvar returns ", returnvar, "\n";
}

my sub returnvar { return $var; }
will work

your line 5 statement reinitialize $var at 0 on every iteration of the for loop. just move it before the for.
what you want would require a "static" pragma like in C (static int foo;)

my sub returnvar { return $var; } will work

Thanks! That's what I was looking for.

i'm totally baffled by this :(

This has been discussed in Perl circles for more than 20 years...

This has been discussed in Perl circles for more than 20 years...

20 years is actually surprisingly recent given that lexical scoping has been standard and well-known since ALGOL-60 and was the major change between Lisp 1 and Lisp 1.5 in 1962. 😝