Actually, you don't even need to check whether the function exists. If you take a reference to a named but undefined function, it magically works once that function is defined. Perl is devious that way.

You're quite correct - I'm an idiot.

In fact, I'm an idiot on two counts. My AUTOLOAD comment is equally bogus. Since everything is happening at INIT time the AUTOLOAD subroutine will already be defined.

I restate my "sneaky" comment. Very nice :-)