Question

Is there a way to load entire modules during runtime in Perl? I had thought I found a good solution with autouse but the following bit of code fails compilation:

package tryAutouse2;
use autouse ‘tryAutouse’;
my $obj = tryAutouse->new();

I imagine this is because autouse is specifically meant to be used with exported functions, am I correct? Since this fails compilation, is it impossible to have a packaged solution? Am I forced to require before each new module invocation if I want dynamic loading?

The reasoning behind this is that my team loads many modules, but we’re afraid this is eating up memory.

Answer 1

You want Class::Autouse or ClassLoader.

Due to too much magic, I use ClassLoader only in my REPL for convenience. For serious code, I always load classes explicitely. Jack Maney points out in a comment that Module::Load and Module::Load::Conditional are suitable for delayed loading.