Ofcourse there are (CORE) modules doing it... But it's not that because they do it you should do it too... And in my opinion the tied hash from DB_File and your scalar are two completly differnt things...

The way to make DB_File segfault is to get the tied object and then change it.

The way to make your code segfault is to either change the thing it references to or pass the wrong thing to one of your other routines.

For example:

my $artist2;
my $cd = new_cd($artist2);
[download]

This code will segfault. Sure in this example it is (or atleast should be) obvious why it segfaults... But if you are passing $artist to several subroutines and maybe forgetting it/passing the wrong thing once then it is not that obvious...

To prevent $$artist from being changed you could use: SvREADONLY_on(SvRV(perlref));.

But this still leaves the other issue... As in, passing the wrong variable/undef to new_cd(); (for example)...

I guess it comes down to:

• Who will be using it?
• How familiar are they with segfaults?
• Do they expect to see a segfault in perl?
• Will they think about your code as causing the segfault? (I guess that comes down to: how well is it documented)
• Do you really care about the memory that an extra list would use?

Update: removed accidental link.

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