c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -MData::Dump -le "use warnings; use strict; ;; sub _x_foo { hiya(@_); } sub _x_bar { hiya(@_); } ;; my %disp = map { my $agent = qq{_x_$_}; $_ => __PACKAGE__->UNIVERSAL::can($agent) || die qq{dispatch via unknown agent '$agent'}; } qw(foo bar BAM) ; ::dd \%disp; ;; sub hiya { print 'hi from ', (caller(1))[3], qq{ (@_)}; } ;; $disp{foo}(); $disp{POW}(qw(x y z)); $disp{bar}(99, 88); " dispatch via unknown agent '_x_BAM' at -e line 1.