Class method names in a scalar variable

[rongrw]

Dear Monks,

Is it possible to call a class method whose name is stored in a scalar variable? For example, consider the following code.

package Class_A;

sub Meth_U { ... }
sub Meth_V { ... }
sub Meth_W { ... }

sub Dump_SV {
   my $self = shift;

   foreach my $a qw( U V W ) {
      my $method = "Meth_" . $a;

      # Call the method whose name is kept in a variable.
      $self->$method->();   # DOES NOT WORK
   }
}

Cheers, Ron.

[LanX]

yes, just wrong syntax:

try $self->$method();

->Methods are always just strings which are messaged to the class to seek the appropriate sub.

[tobyink]

In addition to LanX's answer (which is correct), I'll point out that $self->$method->() is valid Perl; it just doesn't do what you want. $self->$method->() will call the method named in $method on the $self object; it then assumes that the method will return a coderef, and calls that coderef.