I want to write a mod_perl application that would allow a user to search, sort and browse through a set of records from a database table represented by a subclass of Class::DBI::Pager

I do this often, so I want to encapsulate all that searching, sorting and browsing logic in it's own class with a few customization hooks:

With any luck, I can write a complete web application like this: 

package Physemp::Admin::Clients::Browse;
use base 'My::Browse';  ## My::Browse is the base browsing class

__PACKAGE__->pager_class('Physemp::Model::Account');

sub items_per_page { return 10; }

sub search_template_name  { return 'path/to/search/template'; }
sub result_template_name  { return 'path/to/result/template'; }
sub wrapper_template_name { return 'path/to/wrapper/template'; }

## whatever other hooks I need

1;
__END__

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What I'm not really clear on is how to code the pager_class() method I used just above. If I understand properly, the I need the same effect from that as if I had typed 

$class = 'Physemp::Model::Account';
require "$class";

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in My/Browse.pm.

Perhaps I'm off and a better way to do that exists. I don't consider myself as up on design patterns as I could be, but I think some people call what I'm talking about a factory class.

TIA for any advice y'all give me.

In reply to OO Design Advice Sought by cleverett

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