Class method names in a scalar variable

rongrw has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Dear Monks,

Is it possible to call a class method whose name is stored in a scalar variable? For example, consider the following code.

package Class_A;

sub Meth_U { ... }
sub Meth_V { ... }
sub Meth_W { ... }

sub Dump_SV {
   my $self = shift;

   foreach my $a qw( U V W ) {
      my $method = "Meth_" . $a;

      # Call the method whose name is kept in a variable.
      $self->$method->();   # DOES NOT WORK
   }
}
[download]

Cheers, Ron.

Comment on Class method names in a scalar variable Download Code

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Re: Class method names in a scalar variable by LanX (Saint) on Dec 23, 2013 at 15:19 UTC
yes, just wrong syntax: try `$self->$method();` ->Methods are always just strings which are messaged to the class to seek the appropriate sub. Cheers Rolf ( addicted to the Perl Programming Language)	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Class method names in a scalar variable by tobyink (Canon) on Dec 23, 2013 at 15:28 UTC
In addition to LanX's answer (which is correct), I'll point out that `$self->$method->()` is valid Perl; it just doesn't do what you want. `$self->$method->()` will call the method named in `$method` on the `$self` object; it then assumes that the method will return a coderef, and calls that coderef. `use Moops; class Cow :rw { has name => (default => 'Ermintrude') }; say Cow->new->name`	[reply] [d/l] [select]