How to access the values of variables defined in package from main package

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

I want to access the Values of User_Preferences hash from ::main package.

I need perl monks advice in this

 
#File name: ConfigFileRead.pm
package ConfigFileRead;

use strict;
use warnings;

my %User_Preferences;
my $configFile;
print("Printing from ConfigFileRead.pm...\n");
print("\nIn namespace: ",__PACKAGE__,"...\n");

sub readConfigFile 
{
    print("Printing from readConfigFile()...\n");
    
    my $configFile=shift;
    open CONFIG,$configFile || die "Missing input file name.\n";
    
    while (<CONFIG>) {
        chomp;                  # no newline
        s/#.*//;                # no comments
        s/^\s+//;               # no leading white
        s/\s+$//;               # no trailing white
        next unless length;     # anything left? - skip if the the str
+ing is not having any length.. if the length of the default string un
+der process is having length greater than 0 then proceed with next st
+ep
        my ($var, $value) = split(/\s*=\s*/, $_, 2);
        $User_Preferences{$var} = $value;
    } 

    close(CONFIG);

}

 1;  # don't forget to return a true value from the file
[download]

Config.ini file

#Filenname: config.ini

# set class C net
$NETMASK = '255.255.255.0';
$MTU     = 0x128;
# Brent, please turn on the modem
$DEVICE  = 'cua1';
$RATE    = 115_200;
$MODE    = 'adaptive';
[download]

Main file : main.pl

use strict;
use warnings;

require ConfigFileRead;

&ConfigFileRead::readConfigFile("config.ini");

print("\nIn namespace: ",__PACKAGE__,"...\n");

# How to access the contents of %User_Preferences ?
# Need help
[download]

Comment on How to access the values of variables defined in package from main package Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: How to access the values of variables defined in package from main package by Corion (Patriarch) on Feb 09, 2010 at 08:05 UTC
Make your configuration a global variable instead of a lexical variable and you can access it from anywhere: `package ConfigFileRead; ... use vars qw(%User_Preferences); ...` [download] `# main program ... require ConfigFileRead; use Data::Dumper; print Dumper \%ConfigFileRead::User_Preferences;` [download] Or, alternatively, make your subroutine `readConfigFile` return a reference to the configuration: `# in ConfigRead.pm sub readConfigFile { ... return \%User_Preferences; }; # main program my $config = ConfigFileRead::readConfigFile(); print Dumper $config;` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: How to access the values of variables defined in package from main package by Anonymous Monk on Feb 09, 2010 at 06:59 UTC
AppConfig	[reply]