I apologize for lack of clarity.

I do not want to snapshot the disk - the contents will not change.

As thinking about it makes me realize, I wanted to do two things at once:

• do the work of computing @INC in advance
• reduce the number of computed elements in @INC by consolidating contents of multiple locations into one with symlinks

The first is primarily for manageability and stability, the second is primarily for performance.

I intend to follow your advice and snapshot a serialized @INC after it is computed. Data::Dumper seems to be the right answer, as it is readily available, if 5.8 or later can be assumed.

Then I can do a few tests to see whether the performance component is actually a real concern in any of my cases. If so, I can add a sepearate step for consolidating many @INC components into one by caching symlinks.

Thanks!