# the following code throws a compile time error
package TestPackage;

use strict;

sub AUTOLOAD {
    print $AUTOLOAD, " is not available\n";
}

# this code is fine
package TestPackage;

use strict;
our $AUTOLOAD;    # 'use vars qw( $AUTOLOAD )' works too

sub AUTOLOAD {
    print $AUTOLOAD, " is not available\n";
}