This is generally true, but there is an example in Conway's book where he uses AUTOLOAD for accessor methods, but creates a new method on the fly, so that AUTOLOAD is only called the first time that a particular method is used.

The code looks like this (note use of no strict to allow symbolic references in a strictly (no pun intended) controlled manner.)

Should probably point out that this isn't actually Damien Conway's code, but a slightly changed version that I hacked up.

sub AUTOLOAD {
  no strict 'refs';
  my ($self, $val) = @_;
  my ($name) = $AUTOLOAD =~ m/.*::(\w*)/;

  *{$AUTOLOAD} = sub { return @_ > 1 ?
             $_[0]->{$name} = $_[1] :
               $_[0]->{$name}};

  return defined $val ? $self->{$name} = $val : $self->{$name};
}
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European Perl Conference - Sept 22/24 2000, ICA, London
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