NAME

Data::Postponed - Delay the evaluation of expressions to allow post facto changes to input variables

SYNOPSIS

 %functions = ( foobar => 'foo' );
 
 $code = "sub " . postpone( $functions{foobar} ) . " { return time }";
 $functions{foobar} = "baz";
 
 # Reflects the new name of 'bar' instead of 'foo';
 print $code;
 
 # Will throw an error because 'foobar' can't be renamed anymore.
 $functions{foobar} = 'baz';

DESCRIPTION

This module allows you to delay the computation of values, usually so you can change your mind about the returned value. Its a sort of time travel.

The values returned by this module are overloaded objects which can be operated on like numbers, strings, or booleans but aren't actually made "real" until you use them in some context that requires that they be computed first.

As an aide to debugging and to prevent time paradoxes, the default postpone() function's effect is that once a value has been computed, it ceases to be overloaded and all of the input variables to it are turned read only.

Exportable functions

postpone( EXPR )

postpone_once( EXPR )

postpone_forever( EXPR )

Subclassing Data::Postponed

Overloadable methods

Data::Postponed::...->new( EXPR )

This method must be overridden by a subclass. Data::Postponed comes with three subclasses: Data::Postponed::OnceOnly, Data::Postponed::Once, Data::Postponed::Forever each of which override this method.

Calling Data::Postponed-new( ... )> directly will produce an error.

$obj->Clone()

This method returns a new Data::Postponed object in the same subclass equivalent to the current object. This implements the = method for overload.

Conversion operations

Each of the methods bool, "", 0+ may be overridden. The base class implementation evaluates all of the delayed computation with no side effects and returns the computed value. If these methods are not overridden, an overloaded value may be evaluated again in the future and its result may be different.

The Data::Postponed::Forever subclass does exactly this. No overriding occurs and repeated evaluation of the overloaded value always recalculates the returned value.

The Data::Postponed::Once subclass overrides the conversion methods so that once the value has been computed, it is finalized and will not be recomputed again in the future.

The Data::Postponed::OnceOnly subclass is Data::Postponed::Once except that it marks all of its input variables as read only after this finalization has occurred. This provides you with an extra level of security.

If you have a bug in your code and write to an input variable after the postponed value has already been computed, you will receive an error from perl that you have attempted to write to a read only variable.

Postponed operations

Non-assignment binary operations

All of the methods listed in the with_assign, num_comparison, 3way_comparison, str_comparison, binary values of the %overload::ops hash. Also, the atan2 method from func.

Non-assignment unary operations

The cos, sin, exp, abs, log, sqrt methods from func, the unary, and the iterators values of the %overload::ops hash.

Binary operations with assignment

All of the methods listed in the assign value of the %overload::ops hash.

Unary operations with assignment

The mutator methods from %overload::ops.

SEE ALSO

This is really similar to the Really symbolic calculator from the overload documentation. This expands on that idea by adding the ::Once and ::OnceOnly subclasses and taking care to be generalized instead of for just arithmetic.

AUTHOR

Joshua ben Jore, <jjore@cpan.org>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-data-postponed@rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Data-Postponed. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Corion of perlmonks.org

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright 2005 Joshua ben Jore, All Rights Reserved.

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

cpanm Data::Postponed

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Data::Postponed