I am reading in a configuration file which has a string representing the package-qualified name of a DBI exception handler.

DBI does not accept symbolic references for its HandleError attribute and that is what this string is intended to handle.

Therefore, I must give DBI a hard reference and would like to know the most direct way of doing so. Below almost works, but I get a funny error message in my dummy example.

the general idea

*Config::DBI::error_handler = eval "&$symbolic_ref";

DBI->connect($DSN, $User, $Pass, 
      { HandleError => Config::DBI::error_handler } );
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the dummy code

package M;

sub x {
  print "sub __PACKAGE__x";
}

sub y {
  print "sub __PACKAGE__y";
}

1;

package N;

$s = 'M::y';

*M::x = eval "&$s";

M::x();
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but it gives a bizarre errmsg:

 ~/hacks/config-dbi/scripts $ perl symref.pl
Undefined subroutine &main::1 called at symref.pl line 19.
sub __PACKAGE__y        ~/hacks/config-dbi/scripts $
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