Obviously I'm missing something key here. I have:

my @val  = (\val_input,\val_input,\val_input,\val_input,\val_number,\v
+al_date,\val_number,\val_filter);
        
for my $i ( 0 .. $#list) {        
   $code = $val[$i]; #which subroutine to call?
   ($sql{ $list[$i] }, $error) = $self->$code( $mand[$i], $self->query
+->param($list[$i] ));
   if ( $error-> { msg } ) { push @errors, ucfirst($list[$i])." $error
+->{ msg }" }
}
[download]

Sounds like I need a no strict 'refs' block in there. Possibly:

}
no strict 'refs';
$code = $val[$i];
}
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But now I'm just speculating.

Why would you need to disable strict for this block:

{
no strict 'refs';
$code = $val[$i];
}
[download]

Without seeing the rest of the code, I can't tell you exactly what this does:

my @val  = (\val_input,\val_input,\val_input,\val_input,\val_number,\val_date,\val_number,\val_filter);

I can tell you that it doesn't take references to val_input, val_number, and so on. If you've predeclared those subroutines, Perl will call them and then take references to their return values. Otherwise, they're bare words, and strict will complain.