Why are my shared variables getting cleared out between PerlChildInitHandler and PerlResponseHandler in mod_perl?

Question

I am trying to load a configuration file into a hash during my PerlChildInitHandler and then access the values from PerlResponseHandler. However, even though the process number is the same, it seems that variables changed during the child_init() call revert back to their default values when handler() gets called.

The basic scenario is:

package StartupLog;

# the variable I'm testing
my $sticky = 0;

sub child_init {
    $sticky = 1;
    return 0;
}

sub handler {
    warn __PACKAGE__ . " sticky = $sticky\n";    ### always says "0" but should say "1"
    return 0;
}
1;

Answer 1

This was never answered, so eventually I moved on to using the PerlPostConfigHandler, which seemed to work acceptably. I can only assume it's something about the forking that happens in the PerlChildInitiHandler but, sorry to say, I gave up. Hope this helps someone in the future.

Answer 2

Generally, if you want to load something at childinit time, and access it in the response phase, you'd stuff it into a package global (like $My::variable = 'lols'). I've never tried to do it the way you are here. Did you try using our instead of my maybe?.