This could be a case for threads if perl were able to cope with shared objects, which it can't, anyhow ... Once you fork you're dealing with two separate processes, so the object in question is no longer shared. This will meaan you will have to communicate back to the parent process the any changes made in the child process to the object. This can be done in a variety of ways from socket to named pipes or even Pixie, which you choose is up to you. See. perlipc for more info on inter-process communication.
HTH

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broquaint