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NAME

Moose::Cookbook::Meta::Recipe5 - The "table" attribute as a metaclass trait

VERSION

version 2.0403

SYNOPSIS

  package MyApp::Meta::Class::Trait::HasTable;
  use Moose::Role;

  has table => (
      is  => 'rw',
      isa => 'Str',
  );

  package Moose::Meta::Class::Custom::Trait::HasTable;
  sub register_implementation { 'MyApp::Meta::Class::Trait::HasTable' }

  package MyApp::User;
  use Moose -traits => 'HasTable';

  __PACKAGE__->meta->table('User');

DESCRIPTION

This recipe takes the metaclass table attribute from Moose::Cookbook::Meta::Recipe4 and implements it as a metaclass trait. Traits are just roles, as we saw in Moose::Cookbook::Meta::Recipe3.

The advantage of using traits is that it's easy to combine multiple traits, whereas combining multiple metaclass subclasses requires creating yet another subclass. With traits, Moose takes care of applying them to your metaclass.

Using this Metaclass Trait in Practice

Once this trait has been applied to a metaclass, it looks exactly like the example we saw in Moose::Cookbook::Meta::Recipe4:

  my $table = MyApp::User->meta->table;

  # the safe version
  $table = MyApp::User->meta->table
      if MyApp::User->meta->meta->can('does')
         and MyApp::User->meta->meta->does('MyApp::Meta::Class');

The safe version is a little complicated. We have to check that the metaclass object's metaclass has a does method, in which case we can ask if the the metaclass does a given role.

It's simpler to just write:

  $table = MyApp::User->meta->table
      if MyApp::User->meta->can('table');

In theory, this is a little less correct, since the metaclass might be getting its table method from a different role. In practice, you are unlikely to encounter this sort of problem.

SEE ALSO

Moose::Cookbook::Meta::Recipe3 - Labels implemented via attribute traits

Moose::Cookbook::Meta::Recipe4 - Adding a "table" attribute to the metaclass

AUTHOR

Moose is maintained by the Moose Cabal, along with the help of many contributors. See "CABAL" in Moose and "CONTRIBUTORS" in Moose for details.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2012 by Infinity Interactive, Inc..

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