NAME

Object::AUTHORITY - adds an AUTHORITY method to your class

SYNOPSIS

 {
   package MyClass;
   use Object::AUTHORITY;
   BEGIN {
     $MyClass::AUTHORITY = 'cpan:TOBYINK';
     $MyClass::VERSION   = '0.001';
   }
 }
 
 print MyClass->AUTHORITY . "\n";   # prints "cpan:TOBYINK\n";
 MyClass->AUTHORITY('cpan:FOO');    # assertion fails, croaks.

DESCRIPTION

This module adds an AUTHORITY function to your package, which works along the same lines as the VERSION function.

The authority of a package can be defined like this:

 package MyApp;
 BEGIN { $MyApp::AUTHORITY = 'cpan:JOEBLOGGS'; }

The authority should be a URI identifying the person, team, organisation or trained chimp responsible for the release of the package. The pseudo-URI scheme cpan: is the most commonly used identifier.

AUTHORITY

Called with no parameters returns the authority of the module.

AUTHORITY($test)

If passed a test, will croak if the test fails. The authority is tested against the test using something approximating Perl 5.10's smart match operator. (Briefly, you can pass a string for eq comparison, a regular expression, a code reference to use as a callback, or an array reference that will be grepped.)

Utility Function

Object::AUTHORITY::reasonably_smart_match($a, $b)

Object::AUTHORITY exposes its smart match implementation in case classes wish to reuse it for their own custom AUTHORITY methods. (There are various interesting use cases for custom AUTHORITY methods, just as there are for custom can and isa methods.)

The $a parameter is always assumed to be a simple scalar.

BUGS

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

SEE ALSO

• Object::AUTHORITY (this module) - an AUTHORITY method for your class

• authority::shared - a more sophisticated AUTHORITY method for your class

• UNIVERSAL::AUTHORITY - an AUTHORITY method for every class (deprecated)

• UNIVERSAL::AUTHORITY::Lexical - an AUTHORITY method for every class, within a lexical scope

• authority - load modules only if they have a particular authority

Background reading: http://feather.perl6.nl/syn/S11.html, http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=694377.

AUTHOR

Toby Inkster <tobyink@cpan.org>.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE

This software is copyright (c) 2011 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.