As moritz already pointed out, if the information is static then what you have is a data file. In that event why not embed it into your module somehow?

If the end user is expected to modify the information somehow (DB name, DB host, user, password et. al.) then you should be using a configuration file. YAML, JSON, XML or just a good old fashioned text file with key value pairs is good. Another technique I've seen more than once is to create a file that looks a lot like a Perl module (in fact is) or plain Perl code to be read. Example: 

package MyConfig; 

#
# For the record:  fixed the following 4 lines since my fingertips dec
+ided to do something 
# other than what my brain was telling them to.   s/my/our/ 
our $datahost="blah.foo.com";
our $datauser="user";
our $password="s3cr3t";
our $database="thedata";

1;

[download]
which is then used thusly: 
   |random handwaving here...
use MyConfig;

my $host=$MyConfig::datahost;
my $user=$MyConfig::datauser;
my $pass=$MyConfig::password;
my $database=$MyConfig::database;

   | now do something with it...

[download]

Personally for my own uses I use XML files and XML::Simple to load them.

Peter L. Berghold -- Unix Professional
Peter -at- Berghold -dot- Net; AOL IM redcowdawg Yahoo IM: blue_cowdawg

In reply to Re: Refactoring conf-driven app into a module; what to do with the config? by blue_cowdawg
in thread Refactoring conf-driven app into a module; what to do with the config? by wokka

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.