NAME

XML::Comma::Util::DefModule - Abstract parent for modules that define a Def in a __DATA__ block.

DESCRIPTION

This module provides an easy way to define a Def inside a module. Children of XML::Comma::Util::DefModule inherit two methods:

load_def
new

The Def is created from a string found in the DATA section of the module. The load_def() method should be called by the inheriting class, in order to load the Def into Comma's weltenshmatzel. The default new() method simply returns a new Doc of the Def's type, and can be used as-is or overridden. A complete, basic inheritor might look like this:

package Example::Frobulator;

use strict;
use warnings;

use base 'XML::Comma::Util::DefModule';
__PACKAGE__->load_def;

1;

__DATA__

<DocumentDefinition>
  <name>Example_Frobulator</name>
  <class><module>Example::Frobulator</module></class>

  <element><name>frobuvalue</name></element>
</DocumentDefinition>

You can access the def from this object in a variety of ways, all of which are equivalent:

$def = XML::Comma::Def->Example_Frobulator;
$def = Example::Frobulator->load_def();
$def = Example::Frobulator->def();
$def = Example::Frobulator->new(%args)->def();

NOTE: when overriding def(), it is easy to make a circular reference which cannot be garbage collected, leading to various unintuitive problems. NEVER DO THIS:

sub def {
  my $def = XML::Comma::Def->read( name => "Example_Frobulator" );
  #do some stuff with $def
  return $def;
}

The safe way to do this is to use DefModule's def() method, which has magic to take care of proper memory management for you:

sub def {
  my $def = __PACKAGE__->def;
  #do some stuff with $def
  return $def;
}

As an added bonus, def() implemented this way will work when called from a class or instance, like the default.