BTW, since you used "function" in your title, but "meth(od)" in the body of your post, it's worth pointing out (particularly in the context of prototypes) that in Perl these two concepts (functions and methods) are not interchangeable. Function calls and method calls follow a different syntax and are governed by different rules. In particular, prototypes are not honored in method calls. perlsub is the place to go for the gory details.