$per = new Person(); $ppl_fetched = $per->record_count();

Well, you're making a common mistake. The "Person" object should represent one single person, not all the persons. OTOH, The "Person" class represents all the persons.

This means you'll have "class methods" (usually called static methods) and "object methods" (usually called instance methods).

For instance, the method record_count() should be called in the Person class itself, like:

my $ppl_fetched = Person->record_count();
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The same applies to add records (which means "new"), and to fetch records (which means, retrieve an already existing object).

Theoritically, you would have something like:

# Create a new record...
my $person = Person->new(\%some_data);
# Retrieve an existing object...
my $other_person = Person->find_by_id($person_id);
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And the access to the attributes (name, address etc) would be something like:

my $person = Person->find_by_id($person_id);
my $name = $person->get_name();
my $addr = $person->get_addr();
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I hope this helps...