NAME

Class::Member - A set of modules to make the module developement easier

SYNOPSIS

 package MyModule;
 use Class::Member::HASH qw/member_A member_B/;
 
 or
 
 package MyModule;
 use Class::Member::GLOB qw/member_A member_B/;
 
 or
 
 package MyModule;
 use Class::Member qw/member_A member_B/;
 
 or
 
 package MyModule;
 use Class::Member::Dynamic qw/member_A member_B/;

DESCRIPTION

Perl class instances are mostly blessed HASHes or GLOBs and store member variables either as $self->{membername} or ${*$self}{membername} respectively.

This is very error prone when you start to develope derived classes based on such modules. The developer of the derived class must watch the member variables of the base class to avoid name conflicts.

To avoid that Class::Member::XXX stores member variables in its own namespace prepending the package name to the variable name, e.g.

 package My::New::Module;

 use Class::Member::HASH qw/member_A memberB/;

will store member_A as $self->{'My::New::Module::member_A'}.

To make access to these members easier it exports access functions into the callers namespace. To access member_A you simply call.

 $self->member_A;               # read access
 $self->member_A($new_value);   # write access
 $self->member_A=$new_value;    # write access (used as lvalue)

Class::Member::HASH and Class::Member::GLOB are used if your objects are HASH or GLOB references. But sometimes you do not know whether your instances are GLOBs or HASHes (Consider developement of derived classes where the base class is likely to be changed.). In this case use Class::Member and the methods are defined at compile time to handle each type of objects, GLOBs and HASHes. But the first access to a method redefines it according to the actual object type. Thus, the first access will last slightly longer but all subsequent calls are executed at the same speed as Class::Member::GLOB or Class::Member::HASH.

Class::Member::Dynamic is used if your objects can be GLOBs and HASHes at the same time. The actual type is determined at each access and the appropriate action is taken.

AUTHOR

Torsten Förtsch <Torsten.Foertsch@gmx.net>

SEE ALSO

Class::Member::HASH, Class::Member::GLOB, Class::Member::Dynamic

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2003 Torsten Förtsch.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.