The Perl class method and object method [closed]

Question

When learning other languages there is often a difference between a class method and an object method.

I know that, in Perl, the class is weak. Is there also a difference between a class method and an object method?

I know the most often used class method may be the class's new method. In Perl I can call all the methods with the package name, but not the package's object. Why is that?

Answer 1

The perlobj man page is helpful here:

When you call a method, the thing on the left side of the arrow is passed as the first argument to the method. That means when we call Critter->new(), the new() method receives the string "Critter" as its first argument. When we call $fred->speak(), the $fred variable is passed as the first argument to speak().

In other words, Perl doesn't make a sharp distinction between class methods and instance methods. They're differentiated by what gets passed as the first argument to the method, and if some methods don't actually happen to care about what gets passed as the first argument, then you can cheat and call them the "wrong" way.

Perl won't care. It usually doesn't.