Two issues.

The obvious one is that often knowing what the exact error is and what line it is on is often very important. So you should use die, without a return in it, and have $! in the die statement. (Just like it says in perlstyle.)

The second, more subtle, issue is that dbmopen is unsafe. It will assume that your dbm files are stored in the "best" format that your Perl knows how to handle. As files move from machine to machine, or if you install a new module, the "best" format may change, meaning that your code no longer knows how to read the dbm file from disk. It is therefore far better IMNSHO to use tie and be explicit about how you are accessing the dbm file.

In reply to Re (tilly) 2: DBM file corruption? by tilly
in thread DBM file corruption? by skinnymofo

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