If %data is visible to both connect() and disconnect() then it should work as expected (e.g if %data is a pacakge variable). However if you'd still like to use lexical variables and have it visible to both functions you could use closure behaviour 
{
    my %data;

    sub connect {
         my $self = shift;
         tie %data, "AnyDBM_File", "data", O_RDWR, 0644
              or die "Cannot open data for read.\n";
         return 1;
    }

    sub disconnect {
         untie %data;
    }
}
# %data has fallen out of scope and only exists
# within connect() and disconnect()

[download]
So %data would now be within the scope of both the subs, and nothing else. Unfortunately this would trip up data(), but you could also include that within the block that connect() and disconnect() are in. For more info on closures check out Why Closures? and other related notes.
HTH

_________
broquaint

In reply to Re: Tying with a class method by broquaint
in thread Tying with a class method by ninja-joe

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