From a previous discussion on functions like localtime being overloaded based on return context, I like this idea: pass in a list of which fields you want, in what order.

my $name= $obj->('name');
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or

my @list= $obj->(qw/name address serial zip/);
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So you don't have to remember what order they "are" in, since you specify the order you want them in. And you can pull just the ones you want.

I suppose an actual hash could do the same thing with a slice.

—John