Man this turned out to be far easier than I feared it might be, at least to accomodate my simple needs. The results are now published on CPAN, as Config::Simple::Inherit. Along the way I learned some more about how absolutely elegant Sherzod B. Ruzmetov's work is. Mr. Ruzmetov: If you're out there and you see any value in this and would like to pick up this new ->inherit() method and include it in core, I certainly feel no need to get territorial about who gets to maintain those 20 or 30 lines of code and its associated documentation. Its available here if you want it: Config-Simple-Inherit-0.03.tar.gz

-- Hugh