diff --git a/perl/exit_strategy.pl b/perl/exit_strategy.pl
index cbbbd03ce8e642e0bd639792d84ed510097b2a67..d584095c3f13a5e96e3973a568d1c37c945433c4 100644
--- a/perl/exit_strategy.pl
+++ b/perl/exit_strategy.pl
@@ -324,15 +324,10 @@ sub check_if_db_conform ($$) {
     my $repids = $xp->find($compiled_xpath_amdsecs); #/mets:mets/mets:amdSec
     my $repid;
     my @repnodes = $repids->get_nodelist;
-    if (scalar @repnodes == 0) {
-      say STDERR "No reppid found in file $filename, is IE purged?";
-      my %tmp;
-      $tmp{"filename"}=$filename;
-      $tmp{"purged"}=1;
-      return \%tmp;
-    } elsif (scalar @repnodes == 1) {
+    my $found = scalar @repnodes;
+    if (1 == $found) {
       $repid = $repnodes[0]->findvalue($compiled_xpath_id);
-    } else { #multiple representations found
+    } elsif ($found > 1) { #multiple representations found
       # choose reppid with LZA, LZA_INTERN or LOCAL (for very old IEs)
       foreach my $node (@repnodes) {
         my $id = $node->findvalue($compiled_xpath_id);
@@ -348,6 +343,12 @@ sub check_if_db_conform ($$) {
         }
         #print XML::XPath::XMLParser::as_string($node), "\n\n";
       }
+    } elsif (0 == $found) {
+        say STDERR "No reppid found in file $filename, is IE purged?";
+        my %tmp;
+        $tmp{"filename"}=$filename;
+        $tmp{"purged"}=1;
+        return \%tmp;
     }
     if (!defined $repid) {
       say "No repid found in file $filename";