A package does not have to be loaded to be useful e.g. we can add a sub to a package and then call it, even though we didn't load it: 
% perl -E '*Some::Module::foo = sub { say "hello" }; Some::Module::foo
+()'
hello

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thus it makes sense to be able to test it with can (whether we loaded it or not).

It seems that as an empty package can do nothing, searching for 'can' leads to nothing. 

% perl -E 'say Some::Module->can("can")'

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However this is not the case for a non-empty package: 

% perl -E '*Some::Module::foo = sub { }; say Some::Module->can("can")'
+ 
CODE(0x259d370)

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or even 
% perl -E '*Some::Module::foo = sub { say "far out man!" }; say Some::
+Module->can("can")->("Some::Module", "foo")->()'
far out man!
1

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In reply to Re: Question about UNIVERSAL::can by Arunbear
in thread Question about UNIVERSAL::can by schetchik

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