I was unable to relate the explanation from perldiag to what was hapenning with dbmopen()/dbmclose(). I suppose if I understood ties and understood how dbmopen() and dbmclose() were using ties, maybe that error message could have held some meaning for me. Since I lack that knowledge, there weren't any words in perldiag that actually mapped to what I was doing in any terms I could understand. :-(

My limited exposure to object-oriented Perl, however, did give me the opportunity to eventually arrive at the instictive sense that perhaps the assignment on dbmopen() was causing a reference to hang around when the untie() was attempted. :-)

Unfortunately that moment of discovery came just after I posted my question. :-(

Thank you, however, for the information. I knew I'd find the answer here. :-)

- Steve M.