Editing __DATA__

[James Edward Gray II]

Okay, I have a very simple script that needs to keep track of a counter 
between runs (the only piece of persistent information).  I thought it 
might be simple to just store this counter after __DATA__, instead of 
creating an entire config file to hold one number.  That leads to my 
questions.

First, is this logic okay?  Any big reasons I shouldn't do this?

Second, HOW do I do this?  I'm guessing I somehow need to activate 
inplace editing or something similar, then use something like 
s/^Document_Number:(\d+)$/$1 + 1/e.  Do I need to reopen DATA 
differently first?

Third, I may need to pull the number more than once during execution.  
Do I use a seek(DATA, 0, 0) to go back?  Won't that actually put me at 
the beginning of my whole script?  Is there a simple way I can just go 
back to __DATA__?

And Finally, I need to protect against multiple executions changing it 
at once.  I just flock() my script while I'm changing it to handle 
that, right?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can share.  I've just never tried 
anything like this before.

James

--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]