I saw this on MJD's QOTW. See QOTW #14 Solution and the TestDupl.pm module. Maybe you can expound on this idea for your needs.

In summary:

Create a module (say YourTestModule), and in the INIT block calls a module sub that runs your tests, then exits (never actually running your program in full).

Run your tests by:

perl -MYourTestModule yourprogram
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I'd be interested in comments as to the usefulness of this approach for "serious" code. (Or perhaps there's a better way that hasn't been mentioned yet?)