NAME

Tie::Scalar::Timeout - Scalar variables that time out

VERSION

version 2.101420

SYNOPSIS

  use Tie::Scalar::Timeout;

  tie my $k, 'Tie::Scalar::Timeout', EXPIRES => '+2s';

  $k = 123;
  sleep(3);
  # $k is now undef

  tie my $m, 'Tie::Scalar::Timeout', NUM_USES => 3, VALUE => 456;

  tie my $n, 'Tie::Scalar::Timeout', VALUE => 987, NUM_USES => 1,
      POLICY => 777;

  tie my $p, 'Tie::Scalar::Timeout', VALUE => 654, NUM_USES => 1,
      POLICY => \&expired;
  sub expired { our $is_expired; $is_expired++ }

DESCRIPTION

This module allows you to tie a scalar variable whose value will be reset (subject to an expiration policy) after a certain time and/or a certain number of uses. One possible application for this module might be to time out session variables in mod_perl programs.

When tying, you can specify named arguments in the form of a hash. The following named parameters are supported:

EXPIRES

Use EXPIRES to specify an interval or absolute time after which the value will be reset. (Technically, the value will still be there, but the module's FETCH sub will return the value as dictated by the expiration policy.)

Values for the EXPIRES field are modeled after Netscape's cookie expiration times. Except, of course, that negative values don't really make sense in a universe with linear, one-way time. The following forms are all valid for the EXPIRES field:

+30s                    30 seconds from now
+10m                    ten minutes from now
+1h                     one hour from now
+3M                     in three months
+10y                    in ten years time
25-Apr-2001 00:40:33    at the indicated time & date

Assigning a value to the variable causes EXPIRES to be reset to the original value.

VALUE

Using the VALUE hash key, you can specify an initial value for the variable.

NUM_USES

Alternatively or in addition to EXPIRES, you can also specify a maximum number of times the variable may be read from before it expires. If both EXPIRES and NUM_USES are set, the variable will expire when either condition becomes true. If NUM_USES isn't set or set to a negative value, it won't influence the expiration process.

Assigning a value to the variable causes NUM_USES to be reset to the original value.

POLICY

The expiration policy determines what happens to the variable's value when it expires. If you don't specify a policy, the variable will be undef after it has expired. You can specify either a scalar value or a code reference as the value of the POLICY parameter. If you specify a scalar value, that value will be returned after the variable has expired. Thus, the default expiration policy is equivalent to

POLICY => undef

If you specify a code reference as the value of the POLICY parameter, that code will be called when the variable value is FETCH()ed after it has expired. This might be used to set some other variable, or reset the variable to a different value, for example.

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=Tie-Scalar-Timeout.

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/Tie-Scalar-Timeout/.

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

AUTHOR

Marcel Gruenauer <marcel@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2003 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.