# Untested change!!!
sub _read { # still need to deal with race conditions
   my $file = shift;

   return undef unless -f $file;

   our %data;
   unless (my $ret = do $file) {
      warn "couldn't parse $file: $@" if $@;
      warn "couldn't do $file: $!"    unless defined $ret;
   }

   return \%data;
}