I do things via a common package with accessor functions. Something like this.

use NYSCUL::ConfAssist qw(getDbConn loadConfig);

loadConfig("myconf.xml");

foo();

sub foo {
    my($db)=getDbConn("mydb");
    .
    .
    .

}
[download]

It works fairly well for me. "getDbConn" consults the programs config info to get all the info it needs and off I go.