On Fri, Oct 04, 2002 at 06:21:00AM +0000, David Cumming wrote: > Is there a standard approach to making a module support both 00 and > procedural interfaces? Any ideas? I just want to create $self if there isn't > one. $self should inherit all the default properties made by new.
There are two standard approaches: (1) don't, and (2) give them different names. The CGI module is an awkward case because of the long legacy of backwards-compatibility. Any attempt at dwimmery in this case will likely cause pain & suffering. Consider, if you will, any method whose arguments are other instances of the same class (e.g., copy_from). Then, auto-detecting OO mode vs. procedural becomes a lot more involved. Typically, attempts at this lead to clients becoming confused by accidentally invoking OO mode when they meant procedural, or vice-versa. Consider, perhaps, writing one package, either procedural or OO, and a second which is a wrapper around the first implementing the other paradigm. Mx.
