my $ref = 'Allsys::Resource::ManMan->' . $task . 'Document($refname)';
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The problem is that $refname gets interpolated in double quotes, which will result in a function call with a bareword in it. Single quotes don't interpolate, so...

Note that only the last string needs single quotes. I changed them both for consistency's sake :)

[ ar0n ]

Thank you. That worked, but I don't quite understand why.
I thought that I needed $refname to be interpolated before
the eval in order for the parameter to be passed to viewDocument()
...

dap

Let me expand on what arOn was saying

Suppose you ultimately want to call foo->bar( $baz ). And the way you want to achieve it is by dynamically deciding what the subroutine you're going to use, like so:

    my $subname = 'baz';
    my $param   = { abc => 'xyz' }; # or an object. whatever.

    eval 'foo->' . "$subname( \$param )";
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Okay, now observe what happens when you call the eval.

    # first, the string that is to be eval'ed is created
    'foo->' . "$subname( \$param )"  => 'foo->baz( $param )'

    # then the eval kicks in
    eval 'foo->baz( $param )'

    # which is effectively means
    foo->baz( $param );

    # where $param is the ref to a hash
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Now observe what happens if I change the quotations and such...

    # suppose we use "$subname( $param )"
    'foo->' . "$subname( $param )" => "foo->baz( 'HASHx(....)' )"

    # where HASHx(...) is the string representation of the
    # hash ref. this happens because you're interpolating
    # the hashref within the string
    end result => foo->baz( 'HASHx( .... )' );

----
    # what if we use "baz( $param )" ?
    'foo->' . "baz( $param )" => "foo->baz( 'HASHx(....)' )"

    # ah, same as the example above
    end result => foo->baz( 'HASHx( .... )' );

----
    # suppose we use '$subname( $param )'
    'foo->' . '$subname( $param )' => 'foo->$subname( $param )'

    # so no interpolation is done in the first step...
    foo->$subname( $param ); # ah, but this is perfectly valid!
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Hope that clears things up. Personally, I like suaveant's way of calling method better, though

my $method = $task.'Document';
$documents->{$refname} = Allsys::Resource::ManMan->$method($refname);
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                - Ant

'NewDocument($refname);unlink(*);'
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I got you, and I considered using if/elsif or a switch to
do call the methods, which I still may do, though the regex
I'm using only allows words containing alphabet characters
correct?

dap