why not check your if $verbose value within your subroutine? That way you spend less time sprinkling "if $verbose" throughout your program.. Granted, my method is slightly less effecient, but you could change your sub to:

sub debug_info {
  return(0) unless $verbose;
  print join ':', "\n*", @_;
  print "\n";
  return 1;
}
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-marius