I doubt this is a good idea $docstring is only initialized after method1 is called for the first time.

So you won't be able to inspect the docstring in advance.

But if that's OK for you you might wanna try PadWalker::peek_sub.

UPDATE:

Nope doesn't help, lexical are reset to undef after the function-scope is left.

  DB<135> sub tst { my $doc="bla" }
 => 0
 
  DB<136> PadWalker::peek_sub(\&tst)
 => { "\$doc" => \undef }
 
  DB<137> tst()
 => "bla"
 
  DB<138> PadWalker::peek_sub(\&tst)
 => { "\$doc" => \undef }
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