package Person;
    use Carp;
    our $AUTOLOAD;  # it's a package global

    my %fields = (
        name        => undef,
        age         => undef,
        peers       => undef,
    );

    sub new {
        my $class = shift;
        my $self  = {
            _permitted => \%fields,
            %fields,
        };
        bless $self, $class;
        return $self;
    }

##</code><code>##

sub AUTOLOAD {
        my $self = shift;
        my $type = ref($self)
                    or croak "$self is not an object";

        my $name = $AUTOLOAD;
        $name =~ s/.*://;   # strip fully-qualified portion

        unless (exists $self->{_permitted}->{$name} ) {
            croak "Can't access `$name' field in class $type";
        }

        if (@_) {
            return $self->{$name} = shift;
        } else {
            return $self->{$name};
        }
    }