I'd like to get people's thoughts on this proposed module, especially
its name (Class::* doesn't seem right; Hash::Methods wouldn't be bad).
If I don't hear anything bad, I'll go ahead and upload it to CPAN.
I like how you can do things like this in the Template Toolkit:
[% SET foo = bar.baz.qux %]
..without having to know if bar and bar.baz are hashrefs or objects (or
even coderefs). So I whipped up a lightweight module (nothing but an
AUTOLOAD method) that lets you do something similar in Perl:
use Hash::ObjectLike;
%H = (
foo => {
bar => {
baz => 123, ...
}, ...
}, ...
);
$foo = Hash::ObjectLike->new(\%H);
print $foo->bar->baz; # prints 123
$foo->bar->baz(456);
print $foo->bar->baz; # prints 456
Any hash ref retrieved for a Hash::ObjectLike instance is automatically
blessed into Hash::ObjectLike (unless it's already blessed as something
else).
Class::Hash doesn't autobless, so you can't use a call chain like
$foo->bar->baz->qux unless each of the intermediates isa Class::Hash.
Class::Accessor, Class::Struct, and Class::MethodMaker are vaguely
similar.
Excerpts from the module's documentation...
NAME
Hash::ObjectLike - hashes with accessors/mutators
SYNOPSIS
$h = Hash::ObjectLike->new;
$h->foo(123);
print $h->foo; # prints 123
$h->bar->baz(456);
print $h->bar->baz; # prints 456
DESCRIPTION
An instance of Hash::ObjectLike is a blessed hash that
provides read-write access to its elements using methods.
PUBLIC METHODS
new
$h = Hash::ObjectLike->new;
$h = Hash::ObjectLike->new($some_hash);
CAVEATS
No distinction is made between non-existent elements and
those are present but undefined. Furthermore, there's no
way to delete an element without resorting to C<< delete
$h->{foo} >>.
Storing a plain hash ref directly into an element of a
Hash::ObjectLike instance has the effect of blessing that
hash into Hash::ObjectLike.
For example, the following code:
my $h = Hash::ObjectLike->new;
my $foo = { bar => 1, baz => 2 };
print ref($foo), "\n";
$h->foo($foo);
print ref($foo), "\n";
Produces the following output:
HASH
Hash::ObjectLike
