Since $x is a blessed hashref you can treat it as a hashref and it will work. my @keys = keys %$x; It is recommended to use the available methods on the object instead.

You mentioned that you have many classes that inherit from Object and they each need a method. If the method is always the same then put it in object, if it differs every time then put it in the child classes. If it is normally the same but sometimes different put it in the object class and override it in the child classes.