NAME

Hash::Inflator - Access hash entries through methods

VERSION

version 1.100820

SYNOPSIS

my %h = (
    persons => [
        {
            last_name  => 'Shindou',
            first_name => 'Hikaru',
        },
        {
            last_name  => 'Touya',
            first_name => 'Akira',
        },
    ],
    # ...
);

my $obj = Hash::Inflator->new(%h);
print $obj->persons->[0]->first_name;

DESCRIPTION

This class can inflate a hash so that you can access it using methods instead of plain hash keys. So instead of $x->{foo} you can do $x->foo().

Why would we want to do this?

First, because this way you can quickly prototype a class. Your class can inherit from Hash::Inflator and the code using your class can just assume the attributes are there. You can bother with writing the methods later. Although tools like Class::Accessor and friends make this very easy anyway.

Second, because we can.

You can call any method on the object. If the name corresponds to a hash key, its value will be returned. If there is no such key, undef will be returned. If the hash contains other hashes (however deep down), those will become inflated as well.

The code has been taken, with very little adaption, from Net::Jaiku by Rick Measham, with his permission.

METHODS

new

Takes a hash or a hash ref and returns the inflated hash as a reference.

INSTALLATION

See perlmodinstall for information and options on installing Perl modules.

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

No bugs have been reported.

Please report any bugs or feature requests through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=Hash-Inflator.

AVAILABILITY

The latest version of this module is available from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN). Visit http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ to find a CPAN site near you, or see http://search.cpan.org/dist/Hash-Inflator/.

The development version lives at http://github.com/hanekomu/Hash-Inflator/. Instead of sending patches, please fork this project using the standard git and github infrastructure.

AUTHORS

Marcel Gruenauer <marcel@cpan.org>
Rick Measham <rickm@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2008 by Marcel Gruenauer.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.