**** script.pl ****
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;

use vars qw(@fields);
require "conf.pl";
print $fields[0];

**** conf.pl ****
@fields = qw( FOO BAR BAZ );
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While using modules is a Good Thing™ in general, in this case it is a red herring. Whether you make your configuration into a module or not doesn't affect what you need to do to allow globals to be accessed while strict is on.

I got my config file to work -- Thanks! I have a question concerning modules. If I where to create a module config file would it be possible to save it (and make it work) in the same directory that contains the main perl script or in my user directory -- such as: home/users/username From what I have read is seems like the best places are in paths like /usr/lib/perl5/ or /usr/local/apache/perl-lib/ but I may not be able to place them in these locations thanks...

Yes it is possible. All you have to do is


use lib '.';
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at the beginning of your program.

This will make Perl look for modules in the current directory too.

Just FYI...

I believe use vars is now obsolete, as it has been superseded by our.

--
my one true love

my @fields;

How do you create the array from the config file?

Post a little more of your program and post your config file.

Here is my config_mailto.txt file:

my @fields = ("to", "from", "subject", "message");

my @field_names;
@field_names = ("To", "From", "Subject", "Message");


my $page_title = "Mailto";
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Here is how I'm using @fields in my main perl script:

<tr>
                <td>From:</td>
                <td><select name="$fields[1]" size="1">
                more code...
            </select></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Subject:</td>
                <td><input type="text" name="$fields[2]" size="24"></t
+d>
            </tr>
                <tr>
                <td>Message:</td>
                <td><textarea name="$fields[3]" cols="40" rows="4"></t
+extarea></td>
            </tr>
                <tr>
                <td>Send it!:</td>
                <td><INPUT TYPE="submit" NAME="action" VALUE="Send"></
+td>
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Remove the my declaration from your config file.

Declare your arrays with our in your program:


our @fields;
out @field_names;
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Then require your config file:


require 'config_mailto.txt';
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That should work.

Have a look at perldoc -f our and perldoc -f my for more info.

Hi,
I have a similar setup and the way I work is fully qualifing the variable using the package name. This will prevent strict from complaining. For Example: The config_mail file

Package MailConfig;
use strict;
@MailConfig::fields=qw /to from subject message/;
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etc... And in your actual program, do:

use strict;
require "config_mail.pl";

...your print code...
<tr>
<td>From:</td>
<td><select name='$MailConfig::fields[1]" size="1">
more code...
            </select></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Subject:</td>
<td><input type="text" name="$MailConfig::fields[2]" size="24"></t
+d>
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This is the most readable solution, as you know where to look for when you want to change a variable.
Dr. Mark Ceulemans

Senior Consultant

IT Masters, Belgium

How about this setup which I think is clean way to do it.

Content of the config file, say cfg.cfg

%cfg = (To => 'to',
        From => 'from',
        Subject => 'subject',
        Message => "message\nmsg2\n",
        Page_Title => 'MailTo');

%cfg;
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Then you do something like this in the main program.

use strict;
.
.
my $file = 'cfg.cfg';
my %cfg;
my $return = do $file;
unless ($return) {
    die "couldn't parse $file: $@" if $@;
    die "couldn't do $file: $!"    unless defined $return;
    die "couldn't run $file"       unless $return;
}

%cfg =  %{$return};
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And then later in your code use it as

                <td><select name="$cfg{From}" size="1">
                more code...
            </select></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Subject:</td>
                <td><input type="text" name="$cfg{Subject}" size="24">
+</t
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This is easily expanded to have several different configs in the same file.
Ex $cfg{Guest}{To}, $cfg{Admin}{Page_Title}, etc etc