# This exists to provide object-specific can() functionality.
# 1) If this is an object, check to see if the method is an element na
+me.
# 2) If either is not true, redispatch to the parent's can() method.
                                                                      
+          sub can
{       
    (
        ref($_[0]) &&
        UNIVERSAL::isa( $_[0]->elements, 'HASH' ) &&
        exists $_[0]->elements->{$_[1]}
    )
    ||
    (   
        $_[0]->SUPER::can($_[1])
    );      
}       

sub AUTOLOAD
{   
    (my $name = our $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*::([^:]+)$/$1/;
    
    my $self = shift;
        
    unless ($name eq lc $name || exists $self->element_classes->{lc $n
+ame})
    {
        return eval "$self->SUPER::$meth(@_);";
    }
        
    $self->elements->{$name} = shift if @_;
    $self->elements->{$name};
}
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A few notes:

1. This is a container object, providing a unified interface to parsing stuff. It acts as a record and the elements are the various columns. Each record may have different columns and the goal was to provide a way of allowing the user to call the column name as a method and get the column object.
2. element_classes is a method which returns a hashref of name-class pairs. The name is the name of the column as provided to this object in the constructor. The class is the class of the column.
3. elements is a hashref which actually contains the column objects in name-object pairs. It is guaranteed that the names from element_classes() will be identical to the names from elements().

This implementation has the added benefit of the fact that it's currently working in production. Now, nothing inherits from it (yet) and I do not use MI in production code, for the reasons well-cited elsewhere.