Why use Perl::Critic if you don't want to follow its advice?

Using require to load a configuration file is a bad idea. For one thing it will silently fail to load the file into more than one package. From the docs for require:

Otherwise, require demands that a library file be included if it hasn't already been included. ... Note that the file will not be included twice under the same specified name.

$ cat conf.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

our %conf = (
  foo => 'bar',
  baz => 'quux'
);

__END__
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$ cat ONE.pm 
package ONE;

use strict; use warnings;

sub one {
  our %conf;
  require 'conf.pl';
  return $conf{'foo'};
}
1;
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$ cat TWO.pm 
package TWO;

use strict; use warnings;

sub two {
  our %conf;
  require 'conf.pl';
  return $conf{'baz'};
}
1;
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$ cat 1137798.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

use ONE;
use TWO;

print ONE::one, "\n";
print TWO::two, "\n";

__END__
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Output:

$ perl 1137798.pl
bar
Use of uninitialized value in print at 1137798.pl line 8.
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Change the require calls to do as somebody else noted and you can then import your config file into more than one package, which is useful.

$ cat ONE.pm 
package ONE;

use strict; use warnings;

sub one {
  our %conf;
  #require 'conf.pl';
  do 'conf.pl';
  return $conf{'foo'};
}
1;
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$ cat TWO.pm
package TWO;

use strict; use warnings;

sub two {
  our %conf;
  #require 'conf.pl';
  do 'conf.pl';
  return $conf{'baz'};
}
1;
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$ perl 1137798.pl
bar
quux
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So use do, or better yet, just use Config::Tiny, which exists to solve your problem.

$ cat conf.ini 
[path]
foo=bar
some=other
[url]
baz=quux
less=more
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$ cat 1137798-2.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Config::Tiny;

my $conf = Config::Tiny->read( 'conf.ini' );

print $conf->{path}->{foo}, "\n";
print $conf->{url}->{baz}, "\n";

__END__
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Output:

$ perl 1137798-2.pl
bar
quux
[download]

Now what's overkill about that?

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