NAME

Tie::Indexer - fast searches through complex perl structures/ties

SYNOPSIS

use Tie::SomeModule
tie %hash, 'Tie::SomeModule', 'some_parameter';
$hash{'one'} = "some text";         # Creates symlink /some_directory/one
                                    # with contents "some text"
$hash{'bar'} = "some beer";
$hash{'two'} = [ "foo", "bar", "baz" ];
$hash{'three'} = {
  one => { value => 1, popularity => 'high'},
  two => { value => 2, popularity => 'medium'},
  four => { value => 4, popularity => 'low'},
  eleven => { value => 11, popularity => 'medium'},
};

# Warning: experimental and subject to change without notice:
my @entries = tied(%hash)->search(sub { m/some/ }); # returns ("some text","some beer")
my $firstmatch = $hash{'two'}->search(sub { m/b/ }); # returns "bar"
my @result1 = $hash{'three'}->search('popularity','medium'); # returns ($hash{'three'}{'two'}, $hash{'three'}{'eleven'})
my @result2 = $hash{'three'}->search('popularity','=','medium'); # the same
my @result3 = $hash{'three'}->search('popularity',sub { $_[0] eq $_[1] },'medium'); # the same
print $hash{'two'}->id; # prints out "two"

DESCRIPTION

This module provides searches through entries in a tied hash or array. It was developed for use with Tie::SymlinkTree but should work with any module. All you need to do is to provide a method Tie::YourModule::_get_index($) which returns a (preferably tied) hashref where this module can store it's information in. That hashref must support nested hashes.

You will probably also want to provide a sub search which calls Tie::Indexer::search(@_).

For now, read the source to see how to create and rebuild indexes. This is still considered experimental.

AUTHOR and LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2004, Jörg Walter

This plugin is licensed under either the GNU GPL Version 2, or the Perl Artistic License.