<quote>It's telling that Dominus didn't actually do the inlining</quote>

Yes, you are right... 1 point for Dominus!... but wait!... look at the FETCH method!!:

sub FETCH {
  my ($self, $n) = @_;
  my $rec;

  # check the defer buffer
  $rec = $self->{deferred}{$n} if exists $self->{deferred}{$n};
  $rec = $self->_fetch($n) unless defined $rec;

  # inlined _chomp1
  substr($rec, - $self->{recseplen}) = ""
    if defined $rec && $self->{autochomp};
  $rec;
}
[download]

Ohhh!! Inlining ahead!... he falls in the dark side of the coding force!!:

# Chomp one record in-place; return modified record
sub _chomp1 {
  my ($self, $rec) = @_;
  return $rec unless $self->{autochomp};
  return unless defined $rec;
  substr($rec, - $self->{recseplen}) = "";
  $rec;
}
[download]

:-) Sorry, it is friday!!

Have a nice weekend!! and thanks for your comments!

Cheers!

citromatik