Update: I meant in addition to sauoq's comment, not instead of.

He's just doing that once at the beginning of the script to remove his old file before writing a new one. That shouldn't matter (as long as he wants to start fresh each time the script runs.)

Update: jsprat is correct. The file should not be unlinked. (It is obvious, on closer inspection, that the script is useless without it.)

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";

I don't think he wants to start fresh each time. He wants to save the data so he can display more than one line.

It looks like a CGI script that wants to accept a line of chat, then display the previous 10 lines. What it actually does is this:

1. deletes all previous messages
2. creates the db file, ties %chat
3. unties %chat, thereby not storing any messages
4. accepts a new message
5. displays the last 10 messages (which were just deleted!)

Not only is the %chat untied from the the DB_File when it's tied to TIE::IxHash (as you pointed out), the script is deleting the DB_File every time it is hit.

Then what do you suggest?

I suggest you use an array instead of a hash and tie to DB_file using the DB_RECNO file type.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";

Also good, DB_BTREE. The keys are always in sorted order.