You just have no choice, if you don't have an instance of the class. So if there is no object created, the UNIVERSAL::can is the only way to test if that class provides that method.

Cheers,

Jeroen
"We are not alone"(FZ)

Update: Ahum... indeed. The perl OO is really confusing. But, now I remember again, UNIVERSAL::can('Test','foo') is actually the same as Test->can('foo'). Because in the last case, the word Test gets unshifted into @_, and the method 'can' is found in UNIVERSAL. So internally, actually UNIVERSAL::can is called, with the args ('Test', @_), which comes down to the same.

So this is actually a feature, not a bug {grin}

To clarify a bit more (mehopes):

package Test;
package main;
print "it works\n" if Test->UNIVERSAL::can('can');
print "it works\n" if Test->SUPER::can('can');
[download]

You see? The Package::can only gives the route to the method (if not given, perl finds it from ISA). The -> only tells which thing to unshift in @_.

Of course, the sub need a way to filter out whether they are called with a Package or an object. So the trick doesn't work with all methods.

It's explained also in the 'Inheritance' section of perltoot.