it didn't occur to me that i didn't have to use a typeglob as my holder. good idea, and although it's a core module, this approach means i have one less use statement. Can anybody tell me why do this:

if    ($type eq 'SCALAR') { undef ${*{$glob}} ;}
  elsif ($type eq 'ARRAY')  { undef @{*{$glob}} ;}
  elsif ($type eq 'HASH')   { undef %{*{$glob}} ;}
  elsif ($type eq 'CODE')   { undef &{*{$glob}} ;}
  elsif ($type eq 'IO')     { close *{$glob} ;}
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instead of this:

($type eq 'IO') ? close *{$glob} : undef *{$glob}{$type};
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and i have to wonder if just using this would not work:

undef *{$glob}{$type};
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update: I should note that completely eradicating the sub from memory isn't necessarily the problem here, as sometimes the created CODE glob is simply an alias from another package rather than a brand new anonymous sub.