NAME

Class::Accessor::Installer - Install an accessor subroutine

VERSION

version 1.100880

SYNOPSIS

package Class::Accessor::Foo;

use base 'Class::Accessor::Installer';

sub mk_foo_accessors {
    my ($self, @fields) = @_;
    my $class = ref $self || $self;

    for my $field (@fields) {
        $self->install_accessor(
            sub     => "${field}_foo",
            code    => sub { rand() },
        );
    }

    my $field = '...';
    $self->document_accessor(
        name     => "${field}_foo",
        purpose  => 'Does this, that and the other',
        examples => [
            "my \$result = $class->${field}_foo(\$value)",
            "my \$result = $class->${field}_foo(\$value, \$value2)",
        ],
        belongs_to => 'foo',
    );
}

DESCRIPTION

This mixin class provides a method that will install a code reference. There are other modules that do this, but this one is a bit more specific to the needs of Class::Accessor::Complex and friends.

It is intended as a mixin, that is, your accessor-generating class should inherit from this class.

METHODS

install_accessor

Takes as arguments a named hash. The following keys are recognized:

package

The package into which to install the subroutine. If this argument is omitted, it will inspect $self to determine the package. Class::Accessor::* accessor generators are typically used like this:

__PACKAGE__
    ->mk_new
    ->mk_array_accessors(qw(foo bar));

Therefore install_accessor() can determine the right package into which to install the subroutine.

name

The name or names to use for the subroutine. You can either pass a single string or a reference to an array of strings. Each string is interpreted as a subroutine name inside the given package, and the code reference is installed into the appropriate typeglob.

Why would you want to install a subroutine in more than one place inside your package? For example, Class::Accessor::Complex often creates aliases so the user can choose the version of the name that reads more naturally.

An example of this usage would be:

$self->install_accessor(
    name => [ "clear_${field}", "${field}_clear" ],
    code => sub { ... }
);
code

This is the code reference that should be installed.

The installed subroutine is named using Sub::Name, so it shows up with a meaningful name in stack traces (instead of as __ANON__). However, the inside the debugger, the subroutine still shows up as __ANON__. You might therefore want to use the following lines at the beginning of your subroutine:

$self->install_accessor(
    name => $field,
    code => sub {
        local $DB::sub = local *__ANON__ = "${class}::${field}"
            if defined &DB::DB && !$Devel::DProf::VERSION;
        ...
);

Now the subroutine will be named both in a stack trace and inside the debugger.

document_accessor

Adds documentation for an accessor - not necessarily one that has been generated with install_accessor(). See Sub::Documentation for details.

Takes as arguments a named hash. The following keys are recognized:

package

Like the package argument of install_accessor().

name

The name of the accessor being documented. This can be a string or a reference to an array of strings, if the same documentation applies to more than one method. This can occur, for example, when there are aliases for a method such as clear_foo() and foo_clear().

purpose

A string describing the generated method.

examples

An array reference containing one or more examples of using the method. These will also be used in the generated documentation.

You can pass additional arbitrary key/value pairs; they will be stored as well. It depends on your documentation tool which keys are useful. For example, Class::Accessor::Complex generates and Pod::Weaver::Section::CollectWithAutoDoc supports a belongs_to key that shows which generated helper method belongs to which main accessor.

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=Class-Accessor-Installer.

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/Class-Accessor-Installer/.

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

AUTHORS

Marcel Gruenauer <marcel@cpan.org>
Florian Helmberger <florian@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2007 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.