Thanks for all the suggestions. I believe i have a working version. This is for part of a name string analyzer. Here is exactly what im doing: 
use strict;
use Carp;
use constant    {
    PREFIX      =>  1,
    SUFFIX      =>  2,
    TRUST       =>  3,
    DATE        =>  4,
    BUSINESS    =>  5,
};

sub AUTOLOAD {
    my $self = shift @_;
    my $method = $AUTOLOAD;
    $method =~ s/.*:://;
    return if $method eq "DESTROY";

    if ( $method !~ m/^Is(.+)$/ ) {
        confess "method = $method is not supported by AUTOLOAD!\n";
    }
    my $token_type_value = eval( uc($1) );
    if ( $@ ) {
        confess "invalid token type $1!\n";
    }

    my ($token) = @_;
    return $self->_IsToken($token, $token_type_value);
}

[download]
then i can make method calls like: 
$analyzer->IsSuffix("PhD");

[download]
And _IsToken() does various tests, mostly against a list of known identifiers to determine if the token is of the type being asked about.

In reply to Re: constant name in variable by shemp
in thread constant name in variable by shemp

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