If you consider using chromatic's first idea, I'd suggest that you re-work it like so:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

BEGIN {
    my @packages = qw(test test2);
    my @vars = qw(first second);
    populate();
    sub populate {
        my $text = '';
        foreach my $package (@packages) {
            foreach my $var (@vars) {
                $text .= '$' . $package . '::' . $var . ' = 1;' . "\n"
+;
            }
        }
        print $text;
        eval $text;
    }
}
print "test:\t$test::first\t$test::second\n";
print "test2:\t$test2::first\t$test2::second\n";
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... this way, you move the eval() outside the loop, which I understand improves performance significantly.

Alan "Hot Pastrami" Bellows
-Sitting calmly with scissors-