When you access a variable that does not exist perl will AUTOVIVIFY it (ie create it for you). Although TheDamian was doing some work on an AUTOVIVIFY sub (equivalent to AUTOLOAD but for vars) AFAIK you can't currently catch access to undefined vars.

It sounds like you have some significant design issues. Perl code for config files + lots of users is an *interesting* (scary) concept. What is to stop someone inserting arbitrary code that will then run with the perms of you master script?

Your explanation of the problem you are trying to solve may make sense to you but is far from clear at this end. You have a performance problem and you say it is loading the config files. Are you sure? What is actually in these files? Why do you think delaying loading will speed things up? Is this a CGI? Are you using mod_perl? ?????

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