Hey, I'm new to PM and this is my first post. I'm also *fairly* new to Perl, but I do have a bit of experience under my belt.

I have a script that is converting a text file into a database. I wanted to use GDBM because of its "many-reader" aspect. I'm beginning to think it's not worth it, but I was curious about why I'm getting what I'm getting.

It appears as though the database file itself is full of code from the XSLoader module. First, here's the script:

#!/usr/local/stow/perl-5.6.1/bin/perl -w

use GDBM_File;

my $portlist = "/dfs/umaint/stow/UMno/libdata/portlist";
my %ports;

tie(%ports,'GDBM_File','gdbmtest',&GDBM_NEWDB,0644) or die "$!\n";

open(PL, $portlist) or die "$!\n";
while(<PL>) {
    chomp;
    next if(/^\#/ || $_ eq "");
    my ($switch,$ifnum,$trunk,$desc) = split(/:/);
    my ($generated,$conn,$notes) = split(/\s(\+|-|!)\s*/,$desc);
    my ($ifname,$vlan,$host) = split(/\s/,$generated);
    $ports{"$switch:$ifnum"} = "$trunk:$ifname:$vlan:$host:$conn:$note
+s";
}

untie(%ports) or warn "$!\n";

[download]

And now for the gdbmtest file:

^SW\232\316^D^D^D^H^D0^BXzr.pm.
    # Often these errors are actually occurring in the initialisation
    # C code of the extension XS file. Perl reports the error as being
    # in this perl code simply because this was the last perl code
    # it executed.
                                                                      
+          
    my $libref = dl_load_file($file, 0) or do {
        require Carp;
        Carp::croak("Can't load '$file' for module $module: " . dl_err
+or());
    };
    push(@dl_librefs,$libref);  # record loaded object
                                                                      
+          
    my @unresolved = dl_undef_symbols();
    if (@unresolved) {
        require Carp;
        Carp::carp("Undefined symbols present after loading $file: @un
+resolved\n");
    }
                                                                      
+          
    my $boot_symbol_ref = dl_find_symbol($libref, $bootname) or do {
        require Carp;
        Carp::croak("Can't find '$bootname' symbol in $file\n");
    };
                                                                      
+          
    my $xs = dl_install_xsub("${module}::bootstrap", $boot_symbol_ref,
+ $file);
     
    push(@dl_modules, $module); # record loaded module
     
    # See comment block above
    return &$xs(@_);
     
  retry:
    require DynaLoader;

[download]

When I used regular dbm(open|close) to create the database I was able to write to it and read from it correctly. I couldn't find anything odd with the GDBM_File.pm or XSLoader.pm files, but I could be missing something. Should I post the text of those files as well?

In reply to Strange GDBM behavior by wink

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