So anyway I tried the examples that are provided with SPOPS, and after editing My::Common with my choices (Postgres, path to database) was able to install all of the data. Then I tried doing step 6, fetch_all.pl, and that worked fine. Step 7, stock_doodads.pl, failed with the error

[alex@won egSPOPS]$ perl -w stock_doodads.pl 
Added 'set_creator' to My::Doodad
Use of uninitialized value in string eq at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.
+8.0/SPOPS/Secure/DBI.pm line 68.
Can't call method "id" on an undefined value at My/Doodad.pm line 71.
[download]

Since the rest of the test items (to step 11) all do things with 'doodad' I haven't bothered with the rest of the steps, but since the example was able to get 'fetch' work, I'm going to go over that code and see what the differences are between that and my original code (root node).

--t. alex
Life is short: get busy!