Tilly's meditation about breaking can made me think when I use can in my code. Here's my, rather short, list.

• When I want to simulate 'use' with 'require':

      require Module;
      Module -> import (args...) if Module -> can ("import");
  [download]

• Cascading AUTOLOAD:

      sub AUTOLOAD {
          ...
          for my $class (@ISA) {
              if ($class -> can ("AUTOLOAD")) {
                  no strict 'refs';
                  my $auto = $class . "::AUTOLOAD";
                  $$auto = $AUTOLOAD;
                  $self -> $auto (@_);
                  last;
              }
          }
      }
  [download]

  (Yeah, it can fail with multiple inheritance, but that's because there's no standard way for an AUTOLOAD to signal it couldn't deal with call.)

• When I'm using generated constructors and/or initializers, and the inherited classes aren't under my control, for instance:

      # For single inheritance.
      sub new {
          if (@ISA && $ISA [0] -> can ("new")) {
              return shift -> SUPER::new (@_)
          }
          else {
              return bless \(my $foo) => shift;
          }
      }
  [download]

Abigail

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