This is among some of the coolest aspects of perl, IMO.

Assuming $meth is a coderef, $self->$meth(@_) is exactly the same as $meth->($self, @_). However, if $meth is a string which holds the name of a function, then they aren't the same. The rules get a bit convoluted here:

• $meth->($self, @_) does not work with strictures. Without strictures, it should only look in the current package for a function named as per $meth, and then is the same as $self->__PACKAGE__::$meth(@_) (if that is even legal code).
• $self->$meth(@_) does work with strict. It uses standard inheritance rules to find the function named as per $meth, which means starting with the package named as per "ref $self" and going up the @ISA tree.

This means that your validation should not check merely that the action parmaeter is a coderef, but also that $self can do it:

  $self->{_action} = ref $_[0] ? $_[0] : $self->can($_[0]);
  die "Invalid action" unless $self->{_action};
[download]

If you're passed a coderef, use it. If not, you can convert it into a coderef that has already gone through the @ISA tree to find the right function.

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