NAME

MooseX::Params::Validate - an extension of Params::Validate for using Moose's types

SYNOPSIS

  package Foo;
  use Moose;
  use MooseX::Params::Validate;
  
  sub foo {
      my ($self, %params) = validate(\@_, 
          bar => { isa => 'Str', default => 'Moose' },
      );
      return "Horray for $params{bar}!";
  }
  
  sub bar {
      my $self = shift;
      my ($foo, $baz, $gorch) = validatep(\@_, 
          foo   => { isa => 'Foo' },                    
          baz   => { isa => 'ArrayRef | HashRef', optional => 1 }      
          gorch => { isa => 'ArrayRef[Int]', optional => 1 }                                  
      );
      [ $foo, $baz, $gorch ];
  }

DESCRIPTION

This module fills a gap in Moose by adding method parameter validation to Moose. This is just one of many developing options, it should not be considered the "official" one by any means though.

This is an early release of this module, and many things will likely change and get added, so watch out :)

CAVEATS

It is not possible to introspect the method parameter specs, they are created as needed when the method is called and cached for subsequent calls.

EXPORTS

validate (\@_, %parameter_spec)

This behaves similar to the standard Params::Validate validate function and returns the captured values in a HASH. The one exception being that if it spots an instance in the @_, then it will handle it appropriately (unlike Params::Validate which forces you to shift you $self first).

The %parameter_spec accepts the following options:

isa

The isa option can be either; class name, Moose type constraint name or an anon Moose type constraint.

does

The does option can be either; role name or an anon Moose type constraint.

default

This is the default value to be used if the value is not supplied.

optional

As with Params::Validate, all options are considered required unless otherwise specified. This option is passed directly to Params::Validate.

coerce

If this is true and the parameter has a type constraint which has coercions, then the coercion will be called for this parameter. If the type does have coercions, then this parameter is ignored.

The plan is to support more options in the future as well.

validatep (\@_, %parameter_spec)

The %parameter_spec accepts the same options as above, but returns the parameters as positional values instead of a HASH. This is best explained by example:

  sub foo {
      my ($self, $foo, $bar) = validatep(\@_, 
          foo => { isa => 'Foo' },                    
          bar => { isa => 'Bar' },        
      );
      $foo->baz($bar);
  }

We capture the order in which you defined the parameters and then return them as positionals in the same order. If a param is marked optional and not included, then it will be set to undef.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON CACHING

When validate or validatep are called the first time, the parameter spec is prepared and cached to avoid unnecessary regeneration. It uses the fully qualified name of the subroutine (package + subname) as the cache key. In 99.999% of the use cases for this module, that will be the right thing to do.

However, I have (ab)used this module occasionally to handle dynamic sets of parameters. In this special use case you can do a couple things to better control the caching behavior.

• Passing in the MX_PARAMS_VALIDATE_NO_CACHE flag in the parameter spec this will prevent the parameter spec from being cached. To see an example of this, take a look at t/003_nocache_flag.t.

• Passing in MX_PARAMS_VALIDATE_CACHE_KEY with a value to be used as the cache key will bypass the normal cache key generation. To see an example of this, take a look at t/004_custom_cache_key.t.

METHODS

import

Introspection

meta

BUGS

All complex software has bugs lurking in it, and this module is no exception. If you find a bug please either email me, or add the bug to cpan-RT.

AUTHOR

Stevan Little <stevan.little@iinteractive.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright 2007-2008 by Infinity Interactive, Inc.

http://www.iinteractive.com

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