NAME

Class::XSConstructor - a super-fast (but limited) constructor in XS

SYNOPSIS

  package Person {
    use Class::XSConstructor qw( name! age email phone );
    use Class::XSAccessor {
      accessors         => [qw( name age email phone )],
      exists_predicates => [qw(      age email phone )],
    };
  }

DESCRIPTION

Class::XSAccessor is able to provide you with a constructor for your class, but it's fairly limited. It basically just does:

  sub new {
    my $class = shift;
    bless { @_ }, ref($class)||$class;
  }

Class::XSConstructor goes a little further towards Moose-like constructors, adding the following features:

• Supports initialization from a hashref as well as a list of key-value pairs.

• Only initializes the attributes you specified. Given the example in the synposis:

    my $obj = Person->new(name => "Alice", height => "170 cm");

  The height will be ignored because it's not a defined attribute for the class.

• Supports required attributes using an exclamation mark. The name attribute in the synopsis is required.

• Provides support for type constraints.

    use Types::Standard qw(Str Int);
    use Class::XSConstructor (
      "name!"    => Str,
      "age"      => Int,
      "email"    => Str,
      "phone"    => Str,
    );

  Type constraints can also be provided as coderefs returning a boolean:

    use Types::Standard qw(Str Int);
    use Class::XSConstructor (
      "name!"    => Str,
      "age"      => Int,
      "email"    => sub { !ref($_[0]) and $_[0] =~ /\@/ },
      "phone"    => Str,
    );

  Type constraints are likely to siginificantly slow down your constructor.

  Note that Class::XSConstructor is only building your constructor for you. For read-write attributes, checking the type constraint in the accessor is your responsibility.

• Supports Moose/Moo/Class::Tiny-style BUILD methods.

  Including __no_BUILD__.

API

This section documents the API of Class::XSConstructor for other modules that wish to wrap its functionality (to perhaps provide additional features like accessors). If you are just using Class::XSConstructor to install a constructor into your class, you can skip this section of the documentation.

Functions and Methods

None of the following functions are exported.

Class::XSConstructor->import(@optlist)

Does all the setup for a class to install the constructor. Will determine which class to install the constructor into based on caller. You can override this using:

  local $Class::XSConstructor::SETUP_FOR = "Some::Class::Name";

Returns nothing.

Class::XSConstructor::install_constructor($subname)

Just installs the XS constructor without doing some of the necessary setup. $subname is a fully qualified sub name, like "Foo::new".

This is automatically done as part of import, so if you're using import, you don't need to do this.

Returns nothing.

Class::XSConstructor::inheritance_stuff($classname)

Checks the @ISA variable in the class and makes Class::XSConstructor aware of any attributes declared by parent classes. (Though only if those parent classes use Class::XSConstructor.)

This is automatically done as part of import, so if you're using import, you don't need to do this.

Returns nothing.

($ar_has, $ar_required, $hr_isa, $sr_build) = Class::XSConstructor::get_vars($classname)

Returns references to the variables where Class::XSConstructor stores its configuration for the class.

See "Use of Package Variables".

Class::XSConstructor::populate_build($classname)

This will need to be called if the list of BUILD methods that ought to be called when constructing an object of the given class changes at runtime. (Which would be pretty unusual.)

Returns nothing.

Use of Package Variables

Class::XSConstructor stores its configuration for class Foo in the following global variables:

@Foo::__XSCON_HAS

A list of all attributes which the constructor should accept (both required and optional), including attributes defined by parent classes.

inheritance_stuff will automatically populate this from parent classes, and import (which calls inheritance_stuff) will populate it based on @optlist.

@Foo::__XSCON_REQUIRED

A list of all attributes which the constructor should require, including attributes defined by parent classes.

inheritance_stuff will automatically populate this from parent classes, and import (which calls inheritance_stuff) will populate it based on @optlist.

%Foo::__XSCON_ISA

A map of attributes to type constraint coderefs, including attributes defined by parent classes. Type constraints must be coderefs, not Type::Tiny objects.

inheritance_stuff will automatically populate this from parent classes, and import (which calls inheritance_stuff) will populate it based on @optlist, including converting type constraint objects to coderefs.

$Foo::__XSCON_BUILD

If set to "0", indicates that XSConstructor should not try to call BUILD methods for the class (probably because there are none, so it would be a waste of time scanning through the inheritance tree looking for them).

If set to an arrayref of coderefs, these will be the methods which the constructor calls.

If set to undef, the constructor will populate this method with either the value "0" or an arrayref of coderefs next time it is called.

Any other value is invalid.

import will set this to undef.

If these package variables have not been declared, there is a very good chance that the constructor will segfault. import will automatically declare and populate them for you. get_vars will declare them and return a list of references to them.

Although you can set up Class::XSConstructor by fiddling with these package variables and then installing the constructor sub, it will probably be easier to use import. For MooX::XSConstructor, even though I'm obviously intimately familiar with the internals of Class::XSConstructor, I just translate the Moo attribute definitions into something suitable for @optlist, set $SETUP_FOR, then call import.

CAVEATS

Inheritance will automatically work if you are inheriting from another Class::XSConstructor class, but you need to set @ISA before importing from Class::XSConstructor (which will happen at compile time!)

An easy way to do this is to use parent before using Class::XSConstructor.

  package Employee {
    use parent "Person";
    use Class::XSConstructor qw( employee_id! );
    use Class::XSAccessor { getters => [qw(employee_id)] };
  }

BUGS

Please report any bugs to http://rt.cpan.org/Dist/Display.html?Queue=Class-XSConstructor.

SEE ALSO

Class::Tiny, Class::XSAccessor.

AUTHOR

Toby Inkster <tobyink@cpan.org>.

THANKS

To everybody in #xs on irc.perl.org.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE

This software is copyright (c) 2018-2019 by Toby Inkster.

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

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES

THIS PACKAGE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

cpanm Class::XSConstructor

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Class::XSConstructor