elTriberium:

It's really pretty simple to use a dispatch table, so no module is really required. For example:

$ cat disp_tbl.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use feature ':5.10';

sub foo { say "foobar" }
sub bar { say "barbaz" }

my %DT = ( foo=>\&foo, bar=>\&bar, quit=>sub { die "END!"; } );

say "Commands are foo, bar and quit\n";
while (<>) {
        chomp;
        if (exists $DT{$_}) {
                $DT{$_}();
        }
}

$ perl disp_tbl.pl
Commands are foo, bar and quit

foo
foobar
bar
barbaz
quit
END! at disp_tbl.pl line 9, <> line 3.
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Update: By themselves, dispatch tables aren't a security concern. As long as the user isn't able to have perl (or the shell, database...) execute a string that the user enters, then everything is under the programs control.

Update: Ooops! mr_mischief mentioned that very thing as I was editing my node.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.