For some reason when I run perl scripts, "require" doesn't search the
current directory. I think this is non-standard and want to fix it.
I'm using Slackware 12.0 and Perl 5.8.8.

If I run:

$ perl -V
the output looks good, and at the end it says:
@INC:
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i486-linux-thread-multi
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/i486-linux-thread-multi
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl
.

But if I put this in a script:
#!/usr/bin/perl -t
print @INC ;

The directories printed don't include "."

In my scripts, to use included code from cwd, I have to say "require
./filename", otherwise it doesn't find filename.

You may just "push" whatever dir you need to @INC.

BEGIN { push @INC,'.'; }

Or you add "." to the environment variable "PERL5LIB".

See

perl -e "print @INC;" and

perl -te "BEGIN { push @INC, '.'; } print @INC;"

Propably the taint-flags change the behavior (-t and -T) - compare the output of "perl -V" and "perl -Vt".

Thanks su-shee, evidently this was just my early-onset senility - you are right that -t was what caused the problem in my example. Problem was with the keyboard/chair connector.