note blue_cowdawg <ul><ul><i> </i></ul></ul> <p> As [moritz] already pointed out, if the information is static then what you have is a data file. In that event why not embed it into your module somehow? </p> <p> If the end user is expected to modify the information somehow (DB name, DB host, user, password et. al.) then you should be using a configuration file. YAML, JSON, XML or just a good old fashioned text file with key value pairs is good. Another technique I've seen more than once is to create a file that looks a lot like a Perl module (in fact is) or plain Perl code to be read. Example: <code> package MyConfig; # # For the record: fixed the following 4 lines since my fingertips decided to do something # other than what my brain was telling them to. s/my/our/ our $datahost="blah.foo.com"; our $datauser="user"; our $password="s3cr3t"; our $database="thedata"; 1; </code> which is then used thusly: <code> |random handwaving here... use MyConfig; my $host=$MyConfig::datahost; my $user=$MyConfig::datauser; my $pass=$MyConfig::password; my $database=$MyConfig::database; | now do something with it... </code> </p> <p> Personally for my own uses I use XML files and [cpan://XML::Simple] to load them. </p> <div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-72516"> <hr> <font size="-2"> Peter L. Berghold -- Unix Professional<br> Peter -at- Berghold -dot- Net; AOL IM redcowdawg Yahoo IM: blue_cowdawg<br> </font> </div></div> 994067 994067