use variable from main file in a 'require'd file?

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

i'm using a hash in my main script to store some configuration info:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
require "subs.pl";

# declare and define config
my %CONFIG = ('key' => 'value');
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and in a library file, i store some subroutines that use this config hash:

sub test { print $CONFIG{'key'}; }
1;
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this, of course, doesnt work. the test() sub doesnt see the %CONFIG hash, because its declared local with my() in a whole other file. i've tried declaring the hash with our(), to no avail...how can I accomplish this?

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Re: use variable from main file in a 'require'd file? by sgifford (Prior) on Jun 12, 2006 at 16:46 UTC
If I declare `%CONFIG` with `our` and put the declaration and setting before the `require`, this works fine for me. I have this: t57: `#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; our %CONFIG = (key => 'value'); require 't57.pl';` [download] t57.pl: `warn "\$CONFIG{key}: $CONFIG{key}\n"; 1;` [download] -- sgifford's Web page	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: use variable from main file in a 'require'd file? by Fletch (Bishop) on Jun 12, 2006 at 16:41 UTC
You probably didn't try hard enough. If you declare (in your main program): `our %CONFIG = ( ... );` [download] Then anything else can access it via `%main::CONFIG` (or `%::CONFIG`). If it's declared in a different package you'd of course use that package name rather than `main`. See also Exporter. Update: Oooh, good catch; I didn't notice the relative ordering of the require and the declaration. You'd need to either swap it or wrap the declaration in a `BEGIN` block to ensure it happened as soon as possible as well.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: use variable from main file in a 'require'd file? by ioannis (Abbot) on Jun 12, 2006 at 18:06 UTC
There are more solutions. But let's remember the root of our troubles: the scope of the my operator does not extend to other files; it is not (directly) visible by 'subs.pl', regardless if the file is loaded dynamically with require or compiled early with use.	[reply]