use variable from main file in a 'require'd file?

[Anonymous Monk]

i'm using a hash in my main script to store some configuration info:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
require "subs.pl";

# declare and define config
my %CONFIG = ('key' => 'value');

and in a library file, i store some subroutines that use this config hash:

sub test { print $CONFIG{'key'}; }
1;

this, of course, doesnt work. the test() sub doesnt see the %CONFIG hash, because its declared local with my() in a whole other file. i've tried declaring the hash with our(), to no avail...how can I accomplish this?

[sgifford]

If I declare %CONFIG with our and put the declaration and setting before the require, this works fine for me. I have this:

t57:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
our %CONFIG = (key => 'value');
require 't57.pl';

t57.pl:

warn "\$CONFIG{key}: $CONFIG{key}\n";
1;

[Fletch]

You probably didn't try hard enough. If you declare (in your main program):

our %CONFIG = ( ... );

Then anything else can access it via %main::CONFIG (or %::CONFIG). If it's declared in a different package you'd of course use that package name rather than main. See also Exporter.

Update: Oooh, good catch; I didn't notice the relative ordering of the require and the declaration. You'd need to either swap it or wrap the declaration in a BEGIN block to ensure it happened as soon as possible as well.

[ioannis]

There are more solutions. But let's remember the root of our troubles: the scope of the my operator does not extend to other files; it is not (directly) visible by 'subs.pl', regardless if the file is loaded dynamically with require or compiled early with use.