This is a case for applying tye's best practices: 
{
  my $offset;
  BEGIN { $offset = tell DATA }
  sub build_data {
    seek DATA, $offset, 0;
    return [ <DATA> ];
  }
}

[download]

That way, even if someone else touches DATA before build_data is called the first time (aka a race condition), it still produces the correct result.

Update: Good point - I stand corrected.

Makeshifts last the longest.

In reply to Re^2: reading __DATA__ more than once by Aristotle
in thread reading __DATA__ more than once by ff

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