Having read merlyn's piece on DBM::Deep, it sounded like something that I've wanted for a long time and decided to have a play and wrote the following snippet.

#! perl -slw
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
use DBM::Deep;

unlink './test.dbm';

# my $db = DBM::Deep::new( './test.dbm' );  
# gives Can't locate object method "TIEHASH" via 
# package "./test.dbm" at c:/Perl/site/lib/DBM/Deep.pm line 121

my $db = new DBM::Deep './test.dbm';
$db->{test} = { fred => [ 1 .. 10 ], bill => [ 'a' .. 'z' ] };

print Dumper $db;

# The above results in many errors like the following.
# Use of uninitialized value in string ne at c:/Perl/site/lib/DBM/Deep
+.pm line 704.
# Use of uninitialized value in substr at c:/Perl/site/lib/DBM/Deep.pm
+ line 711.
# Use of uninitialized value in substr at c:/Perl/site/lib/DBM/Deep.pm
+ line 711.
# substr outside of string at c:/Perl/site/lib/DBM/Deep.pm line 711.

undef $db;
$db = new DBM::Deep './test.dbm';

print Dumper $db;
# Ditto the above errors.
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The first thing I encountered was that the module seems to require the use of indirect object syntax new(), which I tend to use when the constructor takes no arguments, but not when it does.

The second problem was that when I tried to use Data::Dumper to inspect the contents of the hash I created, it causes loads of errors.

Before I send a bug report, am I doing anythng stupid that I haven't spotted? (I tend to be blind to my own errors as some may have noticed:)