NAME

Object::Releaser -- Remove properties from an object when the releaser goes out of scope.

SYNOPSIS

Remove all hash reference elements:

$object = {a=>1, b=>2, c=>3};
$releaser = Object::Releaser->new($object);
undef $releaser;
# object still exists but has no elements

Remove only hash reference elements a and b:

$object = {a=>1, b=>2, c=>3};
$releaser = Object::Releaser->new($object);
$releaser->set_keys(qw{a b});
undef $releaser;
# object has element c but not a and b

Cancel the release, don't release anything:

$object = {a=>1, b=>2, c=>3};
$releaser = Object::Releaser->new($object);
$releaser->dismiss();
undef $releaser;
# object is not changed

DESCRIPTION

Object::Releaser provides the ability to delete all or some of the elements from a hash reference when the releaser goes out of scope. This is done by creating the releaser, passing in the object to be released as the sole argument:

$releaser = Object::Releaser->new($object);

When $releaser goes out of scope, all elements in $object are deleted.

If you only want specific elements deleted, set those elements with $releaser->set_keys(). So, for example, the following lines set the releaser to delete elements a and b from the object, but not any other elements:

$releaser = Object::Releaser->new($object);
$releaser->set_keys(qw{a b});

ALTERNATIVES

Object::Destroyer provides very similar functionality. It provides for more complex situations and has greater flexibility. Object::Releaser fulfills one simple function: deleting elements from a hashref.

If you just want to avoid circular references, you might want to use weaken in the Scalar::Util module (which is built into Perl as of version 5.6.0).

INSTALLATION

Array::OneOf can be installed with the usual routine:

perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install

METHODS

new

Creates an Object::Releaser object. The single argument is the object to be released when $releaser goes out of scope:

$releaser = Object::Releaser->new($object);

If you do nothing else, then all elements in $object will be deleted when $releaser goes out of scope.

set_keys

Tells the releaser to only delete specified keys from the object. For example, the code:

$releaser->set_keys(qw{a b});

sets the releaser so that only elements a and b are deleted.

delete_all

delete_all does the opposite of set_keys: it sets the releaser to delete all keys from the target object. Use delete_all if you previously used set_keys to set deletion for specific keys, but now want to go back to deleting all keys:

$releaser = Object::Releaser->new($object);
$releaser->set_keys(qw{a b});
$releaser->delete_all();

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Copyright (c) 2013 by Miko O'Sullivan. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. This software comes with NO WARRANTY of any kind.

AUTHOR

Miko O'Sullivan miko@idocs.com

VERSION

Version 0.10 February 17, 2013

Initial release

Version 0.11 February 21, 2013

Fixed bug: incorrect number of test in test plan.

Version 0.12 April 25, 2014

Fixed error in META.yml.