in reply to reference to a subroutine inside a package

UNIVERSAL::can may be what you're looking for:
package A; sub f { print "I'm f\n" } package B; @ISA=qw(A); package main; my $f = B->can('f'); $f->(); $f = A->can('f'); $f->();
In both cases $f holds a reference to A::f

Dave.