NAME

Object::Annotate - mix in logging-to-database to objects (deprecated)

VERSION

version 0.025

SYNOPSIS

Achtung! This library was an experiment. It failed. Consider using Mixin::ExtraFields instead.

  package Your::Class;
  use Object::Annotate annotate => { dsn => '...', table => 'notes' };

  ...

  my $object = Your::Class->new( ... );
  $object->annotate({ event => "created", comment => "(as example)" });

DESCRIPTION

Object::Annotate is a mixin that provides any class with method for storing and retrieving notes about its objects. It can also produce objects which exist only to store annotations about abstract (uninstantiated) objects, procedures, or concepts.

USAGE

To mix Object::Annotate into a class, just use it. To create a classless annotator object, use Object::Annotate's new method. Both of these usages accept the same arguments:

  db        - options for the database in which notes are stored; a hashref:

    dsn       - the DSN to pass to Class::DBI to create a connection
    user      - the username to use in connecting to the database
    pass      - the password to use in connecting to the database
    table     - the table in which annotations are stored
    sequence  - if given, the Class::DBI table's primary key values comes from
                this sequence; see L<Class::DBI> for more information

  columns   - columns for the annotation table
  obj_class - the class name to use for annotations for this class
              (defaults to Class->moniker, see UNIVERSAL::moniker)
  id_attr   - the object attribute to use for "id"; called as a method
              if it's a scalar ref, it's de-ref'd and used as a constant string

new

You can use the new method to create a singularity -- an object that can annotate as if it was of a class that used Object::Annotate, but is of its own unique class.

  my $notepad = Object::Annotate->new({ db => { ... } });

METHODS

These methods are not provided by Object::Annotate, but are installed into classes that use Object::Annotate.

annotations_class

  my $annotations_class = Your::Class->annotations_class;

This method returns the name of the automatically constructed class that handles annotations for the class or object on which it is installed.

annotate

  $object->annotate({
    event => 'update',
    attr  => 'priority',
    old_val => 1,
    new_val => 3,
  });

This method creates an annotation for the object on which it is called.

search_annotations

  # search all annotations for this class
  my @notes = Class->search_annotations({ event => 'explosion' });

  # searches only annotations for this object
  my @notes = $object->search_annotations({ event => 'explosion' });

This method searches through the annotations for a class or an object, using the Class::DBI search method.

INTERNALS

setup_class

  Object::Annotate->setup_class('annotator', \%arg, \%col);

This method does the heavy lifting needed to turn the class named by $target into one that does annotation. It is a group generator as described in Sub::Exporter.

class_for

  my $class = Object::Annotate->class_for(\%arg);

This method returns the class to use for the described database and table, constructing it (see "construct_class") if needed.

Valid arguments are (for all, see the "USAGE" section): dsn, table, db_user, db_pass, sequence

See the "USAGE" section, above, for information on these arguments, which typically are passed along by the import routine.

default_dsn

default_table

default_user

default_pass

These methods return the default database settings to use if none is specified when importing Object::Annotate. The built-in behavior is to return the OBJ_ANNOTATE_DSN, OBJ_ANNOTATE_TABLE, etc. environment variables.

default_base_class

This method returns the class from which the annotator subclass will inherit. It defaults to Class::DBI.

construct_cdbi_class

  my $new_class = Object::Annotate->construct_cdbi_class(\%arg);

This method sets up a new Class::DBI subclass that will store in the database described by the arguments.

Valid arguments are:

  dsn     - the dsn for the database in which to store
  user    - the database user as whom to connect
  pass    - the database password
  table   - the table in which to store annotations
  columns - the extra columns for the table
  base_class - class from which the new class inherits (default: Class::DBI)

build_annotator

  my $code = Object::Annotate->build_annotator(\%arg);

This builds the routine that will be installed as "annotate" in the importing class. It returns a coderef.

It takes the following arguments:

  obj_class - the class name to use for this class's log entries
  id_attr   - the method to use to get object ids; if a scalar ref,
              the dereferenced string is used as a constant
  set_time  - if true, the created value will be created as the current time

build_searcher

  my $code = Object::Annotate->build_searcher(\%arg);

This builds the routine that will be installed as "search_annotations" in the importing class. It returns a coderef.

It takes the following arguments:

  obj_class - the class name to use for this class's log entries
  id_attr   - the method to use to get object ids; if a scalar ref,
              the dereferenced string is used as a constant

AUTHOR

Ricardo SIGNES <rjbs@cpan.org>

CONTRIBUTORS

  • Karen Etheridge <ether@cpan.org>

  • Ricardo SIGNES <rjbs@codesimply.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2006 by Ricardo SIGNES.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.