NAME

Data::DefGen - Define and Generate arbitrary data.

SYNOPSIS

use Data::DefGen;

my $defn = def {
    my $date = localtime;

    return {
        when => $date,
        result => def { [ 1 .. rand(5), def { scalar reverse 'olleh' } ] },
        topic => def { pick_one('foo', 'bar', 'baz') },
    };
};

my $data = $defn->gen;

# Example of generated data
# {
#     when => 'Sun Apr 19 12:48:16 2015',
#     result => [1, 2, 3, 'hello'],
#     topic => 'bar',
# }

# Generate 10 of these
my @datas = def { ($defn) x 10 }->gen;

DESCRIPTION

This module exports a single def function that takes a CODE block to define a data structure. The returned structure may contain more definitions within it.

Calling gen method on the returned object will recursively execute all the definitions, and return the entire generated data structure. Params passed to gen will be received by all CODE definitions.

By default, a shallow copy is performed whenever a blessed object is encountered. To override this behavior, pass an obj_cloner function, per def block:

my $defn = def { ... } obj_cloner => sub { my_cloning($_[0]) };

Unlike gen params, the obj_cloner function does not propagate to nested definitions.

CREDIT

This was inspired by the JSON Generator http://www.json-generator.com/.

DEPENDENCIES

No non-core modules are required.

AUTHOR

Gerald Lai <glai at cpan dot org>