The problem:

• A r-e-p loop
• A part of it is "compiled" at run-time from a data file to Perl code, for efficiency reasons
• I want the loop to compile the file if it's changed, and call the new version

What I'm doing:

The loop is something like this:

$SOURCE='stuff.src';
$COMP='stuff.pm';

require $COMP;
*dostuff=\&Stuff::dostuff;

while (<>) {
  if (-M $SOURCE < -M $COMP) { # source changed?
    print "compiling...\n";
    system "cp $SOURCE $COMP"; # ok, fake compilation
    delete $INC{$COMP}; # make sure 'require' will load the module
    no warnings; # avoid some warnings
    require $COMP;
    *dostuff=\&Stuff::dostuff; # import
  }
  dostuff($_);
}
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And the "data" file $SOURCE:

package Stuff;
no warnings;

sub dostuff {
  print "ver 1: ",shift,"\n";
}

1;
[download]

Is this usable? Does it leak memory (in the real case the compiled file would be quite larger)? Can I use something similar inside a mod_perl handler? Is ignoring the "redefined" warnings potentially dangerous?

Is there a better way?

Thanks...