Hello! First time poster here, so please be gentle if I transgress. Consider the following short piece of code: 
#!/bin/perl
use GDBM_File;

# File 'voo' created with:
#tie %DBM, GDBM_File, 'voo', &GDBM_WRCREAT, 0644;
#$DBM{'goo'}='moo';
#untie %DBM;

sub DBMopenread {
    $DBREFread=tie %DBM, GDBM_File, $_[0], &GDBM_READER, 0644;
}
sub DBMcloseread {
    $DBREFread = undef; untie %DBM;
}

&DBMopenread('voo');
#$DBREFread=tie %DBM, GDBM_File, 'voo', &GDBM_READER, 0644;
$m=$DBM{'goo'};
print "$m\n";
&DBMcloseread("voo");

[download]
When run with the &DBMopenread call, under both Linux and Solaris, I see (the appropriate version of) this message: 
Argument "voo" isn't numeric in subroutine entry at /opt/perl/lib/5.6.
+1/sun4-solaris/GDBM_File.pm line 69.

[download]
However, if I comment out the &DBMopenread call and just use the direct tie statement... no errors. Can anyone shed light on this strange situation? I'm trying to eliminate some Apache error_log messages. Thank you!

In reply to Mysterious GDBM_File error by Squiddhartha

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.