With mod_perl, you are likely best just making $dbh a package var of a "library module", that everything use's Then the "won't stay shared" is avoided.
I have quite a bit of code that does this, basically its just wrappers on all the database calls that automagically connect and stay connected, but only a single connection required for each apache process.

In reply to RE: RE (3): passing DBI database handles to subroutines by Anonymous Monk
in thread passing DBI database handles to subroutines by moo

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