I was thinking about how in use statements one can sometimes pass configuration options to the module being used.

Say I use a module to implement encapsulated variables in a hash. Maybe one modules wants it to use integer math on the vars. The same Data-encap-mod, might be asked to use extended precision with another mode.

I.e. the base class handles the match, but passing it 'flags' can change the way it functions.

Then I though -- well I can't really store it by calling pack because over it might be a Math-ops that add operations to the Data mod case. It *seems* like I cannot store flags simple based on the calling package, since I might have 

  
        int-ops -> Vars 
  main-<
        extended-precis-ops -> Vars

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In each case, Vars might be passed a different config var, but Vars would only would only exist once.

Then I thought about storing the flags in the caller. But that simply pushes the same problem up a level, since elsewhere in the program one could have the same subtree as is under main.

Then I started wondering if they only way to store such options would be in the context of the entire call tree -- but that sounds overly complicated, so I'm wondering if I am missing something.

Is my example clear enough -- have other run into this? It's almost like I need to have my 'use vars' statement return a reference which seems pretty non-standard.

Ideas?

In reply to Design question: storing package 'flags'. by perl-diddler

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