package fred;

use Carp;

our $DEFAULT_HANDLER = 'die';
.
. or 
.
our $DEFAULT_HANDLER = \¨

our $AUTOLOAD;

sub AUTOLOAD {
print STDERR "AUTOLOAD(@_) - $AUTOLOAD\n";
  my $self = shift();
  $DEFAULT_HANDLER-<('Died via indirection'); # a la Schwarz & Phoenix
  &$DEFAULT_HANDLER('Died via default');
}

##</code><code>##

fred->raise_exception("Some text");

##</code><code>##

AUTOLOAD(fred Some text) - fred::raise_exception
AUTOLOAD(Some text) - fred::die