NAME

Bio::Factory::ObjectBuilderI - Interface for an object builder

SYNOPSIS

Give standard usage here

DESCRIPTION

An object builder is different from an object factory in that it accumulates information for the object and finally, or constantly, depending on the implementation, builds the object. It also allows for implementations that can tell the information feed in which kind of information the builder is interested in which not. In addition, the implementation may choose to filter, transform, or completely ignore certain content it is fed for certain slots.

Implementations will hence be mostly used by stream-based parsers to parse only desired content, and/or skip over undesired entries.

FEEDBACK

Mailing Lists

User feedback is an integral part of the evolution of this and other Bioperl modules. Send your comments and suggestions preferably to the Bioperl mailing list. Your participation is much appreciated.

bioperl-l@bioperl.org                  - General discussion
http://bioperl.org/wiki/Mailing_lists  - About the mailing lists

Reporting Bugs

Report bugs to the Bioperl bug tracking system to help us keep track of the bugs and their resolution. Bug reports can be submitted via the web:

http://bugzilla.open-bio.org/

AUTHOR - Hilmar Lapp

Email hlapp at gmx.net

APPENDIX

The rest of the documentation details each of the object methods. Internal methods are usually preceded with a _

want_slot

Title   : want_slot
Usage   :
Function: Whether or not the object builder wants to populate the
          specified slot of the object to be built.

          The slot can be specified either as the name of the
          respective method, or the initialization parameter that
          would be otherwise passed to new() of the object to be
          built.

Example :
Returns : TRUE if the object builder wants to populate the slot, and
          FALSE otherwise.
Args    : the name of the slot (a string)

add_slot_value

Title   : add_slot_value
Usage   :
Function: Adds one or more values to the specified slot of the object
          to be built.

          Naming the slot is the same as for want_slot().

          The object builder may further filter the content to be
          set, or even completely ignore the request.

          If this method reports failure, the caller should not add
          more values to the same slot. In addition, the caller may
          find it appropriate to abandon the object being built
          altogether.

Example :
Returns : TRUE on success, and FALSE otherwise
Args    : the name of the slot (a string)
          parameters determining the value to be set

want_object

Title   : want_object
Usage   :
Function: Whether or not the object builder is still interested in
          continuing with the object being built.

          If this method returns FALSE, the caller should not add any
          more values to slots, or otherwise risks that the builder
          throws an exception. In addition, make_object() is likely
          to return undef after this method returned FALSE.

Example :
Returns : TRUE if the object builder wants to continue building
          the present object, and FALSE otherwise.
Args    : none

make_object

Title   : make_object
Usage   :
Function: Get the built object.

          This method is allowed to return undef if no value has ever
          been added since the last call to make_object(), or if
          want_object() returned FALSE (or would have returned FALSE)
          before calling this method.

          For an implementation that allows consecutive building of
          objects, a caller must call this method once, and only
          once, between subsequent objects to be built. I.e., a call
          to make_object implies 'end_object.'

Example :
Returns : the object that was built
Args    : none