Namespacing your __DATA__s is a clever trick, but you're wrong in saying that __DATA__ can't be accessed twice. You can use __DATA__ twice: just rewind it. You need to do so carefully: 

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my $data_start = tell DATA;
print while (<DATA>);
seek DATA, $data_start, 0;
print while (<DATA>);

__DATA__
hello world

[download]
If you don't bother to tell DATA; ahead of time and instead just seek DATA, 0, 0;, then you effectively print "hello world\n`cat $0`" which isn't what you're expecting.

Is this the best solution to the original poster's problem? Nope. Is it a solution to "how do I re-process this normal filehandle?" Yep.

In reply to Re^4: How to use __DATA__ efficiently, help! by belden
in thread How to use __DATA__ efficiently, help! by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.