You have two solutions to your problem. Neither is preferable to the other - both work equally well.

• Catalyst and Excel::Template both solve this problem by passing the context around to every method. In E::T, this is an actual Excel::Template::Context object. In Catalyst, this is a Catalyst::Controller object. So, every method in both starts as so:

  sub floober {
      my ($self, $c) = @_;
  }
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• DBM::Deep prefers to provide a reference to the context in the instantiation of every object, then weaken it. So, every object can call $self->engine and get the context object. Thus, every constructor looks like:

  sub new {
      my $class = shift;
      my ($params) = @_;
  
      my $self = bless {}, $class;
      $self->{engine} = $params->{engine};
      Scalar::Util::weaken( $self->{engine} );
  
      return $self;
  }
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As I'm the author of both Excel::Template and DBM::Deep, I feel that each is useful in different situations.

BUT ... you really need to use one of them. Messing around with globals is bad juju. That you're asking here is a sign that you feel it smells wrong. That's the sign of a software journeyman. To demonstrate mastery, you need to learn why it smells and how to avoid it.