#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;


package Thing;
our $AUTOLOAD;
#use vars '$AUTOLOAD';

sub new {
  my $class = shift;
  my $self = { @_ };
  return bless $self, $class;
}
my %fields = (
	      color  => 1,
	      width  => 1,
	      height => 1,
	     );
sub AUTOLOAD {
  my $self = shift;
  no strict 'refs';
  my ($value) = @_;
  (my $key = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*:://;  # remove class name from key
  #print " AUTOLOAD: self='$self', autoload='$AUTOLOAD', value='$value', key='$key' \n";
  return '' unless exists $fields{$key};  # Only do this for valid keys.
  # Create a subroutine so we won't need AUTOLOAD next time...
  *{$AUTOLOAD} = sub { $_[0]->{$key} = $_[1] if $_[1]; return $_[0]->{$key}};
  # and do the right thing this time around.
  $self->{$key} = $value if $value;
  return $self->{$key} || '';
}

package main;

my $thing1 = new Thing( color => 'red' );
$thing1->height('6 feet');

#use Data::Dumper;
#print Dumper($thing1);

print " thing1 has color '" . $thing1->color() . "'\n";
print " and height '" . $thing1->height() . "'\n";