NAME

Tie::Cycle - Cycle through a list of values via a scalar.

SYNOPSIS

    use Tie::Cycle;

    tie my $cycle, 'Tie::Cycle', [ qw( FFFFFF 000000 FFFF00 ) ];

        print $cycle; # FFFFFF
        print $cycle; # 000000
        print $cycle; # FFFF00
        print $cycle; # FFFFFF  back to the beginning

        (tied $cycle)->reset;  # back to the beginning

DESCRIPTION

You use Tie::Cycle to go through a list over and over again. Once you get to the end of the list, you go back to the beginning. You don't have to worry about any of this since the magic of tie does that for you.

The tie takes an array reference as its third argument. The tie should succeed unless the argument is not an array reference or the referenced array contains fewer than two elements.

During the tie, this module makes a shallow copy of the array reference. If the array reference contains references, and those references are changed after the tie, the elements of the cycle will change as well. See the included test.pl script for an example of this effect.

OBJECT METHODS

You can call methods on the underlying object (which you access with tied().).

reset

Roll the iterator back to the starting position. The next access will give the first element in the list.

previous

Give the previous element. This does not affect the current position.

next

Give the next element. This does not affect the current position. You can peek at the next element if you like.

SOURCE AVAILABILITY

This source is part of a SourceForge project which always has the latest sources in CVS, as well as all of the previous releases.

        http://sourceforge.net/projects/brian-d-foy/

If, for some reason, I disappear from the world, one of the other members of the project can shepherd this module appropriately.

AUTHOR

brian d foy, <bdfoy@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT and LICENSE

Copyright 2000-2004, brian d foy, All rights reserved.

This software is available under the same terms as perl.