Re: mod perl global initialization

[Tomte]

As the static globals aren't a concern, I'll concentrate on a proposal for your INIT.pl

I wouldn't use INIT.pl as global-variables repository. Instead I would define and export a sub in it, that'd assamble the dynamic init-stuff into a hash and return this. Instead of using

INIT::thisvar;
INIT::thatvar

you had to use

INIT::getInitvars()->{thisvar};
INIT::getInitvars()->{thatvar};

or, better yet

my $initHash = INIT::getInitvars()
$initHash->{thisvar};
$initHash->{thatvar};

the Module could look like this (not working code, just a pseudo-perl example out of nothing):

package INIT;
use Exporter;
use vars qw( %static_1 %static_2 );

@ISA        = qw(Exporter);
@EXPORT     = qw(&getInitvars);
@EXPORT_OK  = qw(%static_1  %static_2);

%static_1 = (
    this => "that",
);

%static_2 = (
    that => "this",
);

sub getInitvars {
    my $result = {};
    # push the static stuff
    push @$result, %static_1;
    push @$result, %static_2;
    # create the dynamic stuff
    push @result, _dynamicStuff();
    $result;
}

sub _dynamicStuff {
# compute stuff and return a hash
}

Using non-static, not-constant global variables is likely to create a maintenance nightmare; avoid them where possible; using a solution as the proposed isn't much more work, but easily expanded if your needs change.

Edit: declared the static hashes, looks betterthat way;-)