in reply to Re^3: use fields, underscores and subclasses
in thread use fields, underscores and subclasses

nope!

-> has a special meaning for OOP to call with an included extra parameter ... the packagename or the selfref.

just try ->name on a unblessed ref ...

...and log in again ;)

perlop

Otherwise, the right side is a method name or a simple scalar variable containing either the method name or a subroutine reference, and the left side must be either an object (a blessed reference) or a class name (that is, a package name).

Cheers Rolf