If you don't mind stupid AUTOLOAD tricks, you can get rid of the punctuation altogether: 
use strict;
package FOO;
our($AUTOLOAD);
sub new {
        my $class=shift;
        my $self;
        $self={};   # Sometimes you feel like a hash
        $self=[]    # Sometimes you don't. 
             if (int rand 2 == 0);
        bless $self,$class;
}

sub AUTOLOAD {
        my($self,$value)=@_;
        my($attr)=($AUTOLOAD=~m/::(.*?)$/);
        return if ($attr=~/^[A-Z]+$/);

        if ($attr=~/^[_\d]+$/) {
                print "Called digit accessor\n";
        } else {
                print "Called non-digit accessor\n";
        }
}

package main;
my $t=new FOO;

$t->_45;   # "->45" won't make it through the parser
$t->name;

[download]

In reply to Re: Scalar ref acting as simulatenous hash and array? by clintp
in thread Scalar ref acting as simulatenous hash and array? by Masem

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.