in reply to variable subroutine call

Calling a sub resolved from a scalar read from STDIN, fixing your code a bit:
package ECHO_MODULE; sub say_hi {print "hi\n";} sub say_bye {print "bye\n"} package main; print "enter subroutine name: "; chop ($subname = <STDIN>); if (ECHO_MODULE->can($subname) ) { ECHO_MODULE->$subname(); } else { print "sub '$subname' not defined.\n"; }

Read the perl documentation, namely perlrun, perlsub, perlref... anything, all, more.

update, as per privmsg from memnoch:

For the can() method, see perlobj: it resides in the module UNIVERSAL from which all classes implicitly inherit as their last base class. As chromatic pointed out below, the method can() returns a subroutine reference for its argument, and calling a sub as method or function makes a difference. ECHO_MODULE->$subname() will get ECHO_MODULE as its first argument, while ECHO_MODULE->can($subname)->() will not. It all depends on the design of the package - is it a functional package (a.k.a library) or a class?

--shmem

_($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                              /\_¯/(q    /
----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}

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Re^2: variable subroutine call
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Dec 12, 2007 at 03:16 UTC

    I think this is much clearer as:

    if (my $sub_ref = ECHO_MODULE->can($subname) ) { $sub_ref->(); } ...

    Be careful mixing up methods and functions.