Question

I am using the Config::Simple module and the constant pragma. I am parsing a configuration file and setting the values as constant. the test configuration file (test.ini) contains:

POP3SERVER='192.168.1.1'

when I am running the follow perl statements:

use warnings;
use strict;

use Config::Simple;
my %Cnf;
Config::Simple->import_from('test.ini', \%Cnf);
use constant TEST => scalar $Cnf{"default.POP3SERVER"};
print $Cnf{"default.POP3SERVER"},"\n";
print TEST . "\n";

I get the following lines:

192.168.1.1
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at ./algo.pl line 10.

The hash contains the information, you can see it in the first print but when assigned in the constant statement is not set

What am I doing wrong on the code??

thnx

Answer 1

“use” happens at compile time, calling import_from() happens at run time (ie after the use).

Wrap the call to import_from in a BEGIN block:

my %Cnf;
BEGIN {
    Config::Simple->import_from('test.ini', \%Cnf);
}
use constant TEST => scalar $Cnf{"default.POP3SERVER"};