diff --git a/scripts/mdlinkcheck b/scripts/mdlinkcheck
index 33fcac9de6..5c1f0569d4 100755
--- a/scripts/mdlinkcheck
+++ b/scripts/mdlinkcheck
@@ -23,6 +23,9 @@
 #
 ###########################################################################
 
+use strict;
+use warnings;
+
 my %whitelist = (
     'https://curl.se/' => 1,
     'https://curl.se/changes.html' => 1,
@@ -70,6 +73,9 @@ my %whitelist = (
 
     );
 
+my %url;
+my %flink;
+
 # list all .md files in the repo
 my @files=`git ls-files '**.md'`;
 
@@ -146,7 +152,7 @@ for my $u (sort keys %url) {
     my $r = checkurl($u);
 
     if($r) {
-        for my $f (split(/ /, $url{$l})) {
+        for my $f (split(/ /, $url{$u})) {
             printf "%s ERROR links to missing URL %s\n", $f, $u;
             $error++;
         }