note kudra I made the following changes: <br> <ul> <li>call to $one->new sends \$dbh instead of $dbh.</li> <li>One::new expects \$dbh instead of $dbh, and dereferences it.</li> </ul> That's it. I didn't expect it to work, and only tried it because the symptom seemed to be that of a variable passed by value, not by reference. The fact that it did work has left me bewildered, and is the reason I started this thread. 324671 324713