Can I access a static method in a dynamically specified class in Perl?

Question

Is it possible to dynamically specify a class in Perl and access a static method in that class? This does not work, but illustrates what I'd like to do:

    use Test::Class1;  
    my $class = 'Test::Class1';  
    $class::static_method();    

I know I can do this:

    $class->static_method();  

and ignore the class name passed to static_method, but I wonder if there's a better way.

Answer 1

Yup! The way to do it with strictures is to use can.

package Foo::Bar;
use strict;
use warnings;

sub baz
{
   return "Passed in '@_' and ran baz!";
}

package main;
use strict;
use warnings;

my $class = 'Foo::Bar';

if (my $method = $class->can('baz'))
{
   print "yup it can, and it ";
   print $method->();
}
else
{
   print "No it can't!";
}

can returns a reference to the method, undef / false. You then just have to call the method with the dereferene syntax.

It gives:

    > perl foobar.pl
    yup it can, and it Passed in '' and ran baz!