So, how about the case where you have a partial method name in the scalar instead such as wanting to access $obj->set_foo but $method only has 'foo' in it? I'm guessing you're stuck with the eval method this time?

You can always create a new scalar that holds the full method name before making the call :)

my $method = "foo";
my $full_method = "set_$method";

my $return_value = $obj->$full_method;
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Or you could even do  (though that's a bit ugly):

my $ret_value = $obj->${\"set_$method"};
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And this approach is fully orthogonal for passing parameters:

>perl -wMstrict -le
"
 { package Foo;
   sub new { return bless { foo => 'woo' } => shift; }
   sub hoo_foo {
     my $self = shift;
     print qq{hi from hoo_foo: $self->{$_[0]}};
     }
   }
 ;;
 my $oo = Foo->new;
 my $poo = 'foo';
 my $method = qq{hoo_$poo};
 $oo->$method($poo);
 $oo->${ \qq{hoo_$poo} }($poo);
"
hi from hoo_foo: woo
hi from hoo_foo: woo
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Haha so the straightforward obvious easy way to do it huh? *sigh* I hate missing those. Thank you once again :)