[OT] Var Scope question (under mod_perl, of course!)

[Martin Langhoff]

hi,

    sorry for the off-topic-ness, but I'm being bitten by a
variable-scope problem, and maybe if someone is kind enough can help me
out. Off-list, of course.

    I'm writing a module that is called under from embperl and registry
scripts, and I'm finding that the following structure doesn't work:

----- - pseudo code/ sample code --------
use Tie::DBI
my %hash;
sub connect {
    # tie  %hash to a mysql DB here !
}
sub get_data {
    connect();
    return $hash{elementA}
}
------------

    the connect works, and within &connect, the tied hash works. now
inside &get_data 's scope, the hash is empty. ¿? If I explicitly
'return' a hashref after tying it (and grab it in &get_data), that
hashref works allright, so it's not related to scopes breaking the
workings of Tie::DBI.

    I've got this example, from perlmod, that is supposed to work
        my $x = 10;
        sub bumpx {  $x++ }

    and it certainly does. Now why doesn't my code work?

    By the way: I know it's not good to rely in such poor coding
practices as using module globals, but I've got a small module to
program, 2 such 'global tied hashes', and I'm carefully exporting only
what's needed. So I guess I might get away with it ;)


martin