It's pretty much in the documentation for eval, but I try to explain a bit nonetheless.

There are two completely different usages of eval. The first: 

eval {
    # code here that might throw exceptions
    # this is the form that you described
}

[download]

And the second: 

my $string = '4 + 5';
my $answer = eval $string;

[download]

This second form is what you need. It takes a string, and compiles and runs it like a little Perl program.

There are other serialization formats that you might want to use instead of Data::Dumper like Storable, YAML, JSON and XML. They have the advantage that you don't have to eval your code, which is a security risk if you don't trust your data source.

In reply to Re: Exactly HOW eval works (with Data::Dumper) by moritz
in thread Exactly HOW eval works (with Data::Dumper) by whakka

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