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NAME
MooX::AttributeFilter - Implements 'filter' option for Moo-class
attributes
VERSION
version 0.002902
SYNOPSIS
package My::Class;
use Moo;
use MooX::AttributeFilter;
has field => (
is => 'rw',
filter => 'filterField',
);
has lazyField => (
is => 'rw',
lazy => 1,
builder => sub { [1, 2, 3 ] },
filter => 1,
);
has incremental => (
is => 'rw',
filter => sub {
my $this = shift;
my ($val, $oldVal) = @_;
if ( @_ > 1 && defined $oldVal ) {
die "incremental attribute value may only increase"
unless $val > $oldVal;
}
return $_[0];
}
);
sub filterField {
my $this = shift;
return "filtered($_[0])";
}
sub _filter_lazyField {
my $this = shift;
my @a = @{$_[0]};
push @a, -1;
return \@a;
}
package main;
my $obj = My::Class->new( field => "initial" );
($obj->field eq "filtered(initial)") # True!
$obj->lazyField; # [ 1, 2, 3, -1 ]
$obj->field( "value" ); # "filtered(value)"
$obj->incremental( -1 ); # -1
$obj->incremental( 10 ); # 10
$obj->incremental( 9 ); # dies...
$obj = My::Class->new( incremental => 1 ); # incremental is set to 1
$obj->incremental( 0 ); # dies too.
DESCRIPTION
The idea behind this extension is to overcome the biggest deficiency of
coercion: its ignorance about the object it is acting for. While
triggers are executed as methods, they don't receive the previous
attribute value; and they're called after the attribute is set.
Filter is a method which is called right before attribute value is about
to be set. It receives one or two arguments of which the first is the
new attribute value; the second is the old value. Number of arguments
passed depends on what stage the filter get called at: one is for the
construction, two is when set by writer.
Note: When an attribute was never set before and a writer is used then
the old value filter argument will be undefined.
It is also worth mentioning that a filter is called *always* upon
writing a value into attribute, including initialization from
constructor arguments or lazy builders. See the "SYNOPSIS". In both
cases the filter gets called with a single argument.
I.e.:
package LazyOne {
use Moo;
use MooX::AttributeFilter;
has lazyField => (
is => 'rw',
lazy => 1,
default => "value",
filter => sub {
my $this = shift;
say "Arguments: ", scalar(@_);
return $_[0];
},
);
}
my $obj = LazyOne->new;
$obj->lazyField; # Arguments: 1
$obj->lazyField("foo"); # Arguments: 2
$obj = LazyOne->new( lazyField => "bar" ); # Arguments: 1
$obj->lazyField( "foobar" ); # Arguments: 2
Filter method must always return a (possibly modified) value.
Filter is called *before* any other attribute handlers. Its return value
is then subject for passing through "isa" and "coerce".
Use cases
Filters are of the most use when attribute value (or allowed values)
depends on other attributes of its object (or even other linked
objects). The dependency could be hard ("isa"-like) – i.e. an exception
must be thrown if value doesn't pass validation. Or it could be soft: by
storing a value calling code *suggest* what it would like to see in the
attribute but the result might be changed depending on the current
environment. For example:
package ChDir;
use File::Spec;
use Moo;
extends qw<Project::BaseClass>;
use MooX::AttributeFilter;
has curDir => (
is => 'rw',
filter => 'fullPath',
);
sub fullPath {
my $this = shift;
my ( $subdir ) = @_;
return File::Spec->catdir(
$this->testMode ? $this->baseTestDir : $this->baseDir,
$subdir
);
}
}
Inflation to Moose
This module inflates into MooseX::AttributeFilter.
CAVEATS
* The code relies on low-level functionality of Method::Generate family
of modules. For this reason it may become incompatible with their future
versions if they get drastically changed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work is a result of refusal to include filtering functionality into
the Moo core. Since the refusal was backed by strong reasoning while the
functionality itself is badly wanted there was no other choice but to
create the module... So, my great thanks to Graham Knopp
<haarg@haarg.org> for his advises, sample code, and Moo itself, of
course!
My special thanks to Princess Kitten <littleprincess@kittymail.com> who
implemented similar module for Moose framework and made the inflation
code working.
AUTHOR
Vadim Belman <vrurg@cpan.org>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2018 by Vadim Belman.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.