I'd like to figure out how to get mixins up and running under CGI::Prototype. I think I understand the technical aspects of Class::Prototyped well enough to pull it off, but I have design questions that I'd like feedback on. Assuming all goes well, I'd be happy to contribute a CGI::Prototype::Mixin module to CPAN if I can get it that generalized. Let me start with three scenarios I'd like to be able to address and the issues I see:
1. We have at least two applications that have pages that allow users to upload files. The page is pretty similar in both applications with only a few application specific things, like the table it's using and an extra field. What I'd like to do is create an abstract page class for the file upload page and then implement it with concrete page classes within the applications themselves, overriding necessary methods to customize. I have actually done this in the past by not giving the abstract class a base class and using multiple inheritance in the concrete class like so: use base qw( Abstract::Page::Class My::App ); And that mostly works, but I'm knew that it could cause problems down the line and after only a few months I found a scenario where it breaks: under mod_perl, if I use the mixin page for more than one concrete page class in my application and use Apache::Reload to reload the concrete page classes, I get errors with whichever concrete page class is reloaded second. I don't remember exactly what the error is, but I can look into it if anyone is interested. Cracking plugability for this example is most important for me because we actually have two more page types that we need to be able to do this with and right now they're just duplicated in multiple projects. 2. I would like to create a pluggable diagnostics module that I could stick in front of my app module to override core CGI::P methods at strategic locations to capture performance data. 3. We currently have two different validation methodologies and I'm not sure how soon we'll be picking one or the other to standardize on. I'd like to create two separate mixin classes so I can choose the validation functionality to use. I know I could make this work with something like a Strategy pattern, defining two different validation classes with the same interface and telling the app which one to use, but if I can get the first two examples working, this could easily come along for the ride. The basics of this from a technical perspective should be pretty straight forward, right? I just need to take the mixin class and manipulate it's parent and the parent of the class that I want to inherit from it, right? The complicated part, and perhaps this doesn't have an easy answer, is what it I want to insert more than one mixin? What if, for example, CGI::Prototype::Hidden became a mixin, as Randal proposed some time ago (did I understand that correctly?) and I also have an authentication mixin I'd like to use. The problem is that, as a developer, I know the interfaces of the two mixins and what they do, but I don't want to have to look at the internals of each one to know if I need to put CGI::Prototype::Hidden infront of CGI::Prototype::Mixin::Auth or vice versa. Is this actually a connundrum or am I overanalyzing this? Any feedback or ideas would be appreciated. Andrew -- Andrew Gianni - Lead Programmer Analyst University at Buffalo, State University of New York Computing and Information Technology / Administrative Computing Services 215 MFAC, Ellicott Complex, Buffalo, NY 14261-0026 716.645.5332 - AIM: andrewsgianni - http://www.newkenmore.com/agianni ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ cgi-prototype-users mailing list cgi-prototype-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/cgi-prototype-users
