Wow! Two great answers and quickly, even! I have just tried out the method suggested by chromatic, and it works perfectly. Indeed, my background much stronger in c, and other ancient languages than in perl. I so confidently expected to find a #include directive in perl that when I first needed it, I simply put it in, and was surprised that it didn't work!

Oh, yes... My project involves a number of independent perl "daemons" that share a number of common constant values, such as database table names, hence the need for an include file.

Thanks very much for the excellent explanation. I may even be moved to drop something in the collection plate, instead of taking some out as I usually do.