perlobj(1)


NAME

   perlobj - Perl object reference

DESCRIPTION

   This document provides a reference for Perl's object orientation
   features. If you're looking for an introduction to object-oriented
   programming in Perl, please see perlootut.

   In order to understand Perl objects, you first need to understand
   references in Perl. See perlref for details.

   This document describes all of Perl's object-oriented (OO) features
   from the ground up. If you're just looking to write some object-
   oriented code of your own, you are probably better served by using one
   of the object systems from CPAN described in perlootut.

   If you're looking to write your own object system, or you need to
   maintain code which implements objects from scratch then this document
   will help you understand exactly how Perl does object orientation.

   There are a few basic principles which define object oriented Perl:

   1.  An object is simply a data structure that knows to which class it
       belongs.

   2.  A class is simply a package. A class provides methods that expect
       to operate on objects.

   3.  A method is simply a subroutine that expects a reference to an
       object (or a package name, for class methods) as the first
       argument.

   Let's look at each of these principles in depth.

   An Object is Simply a Data Structure
   Unlike many other languages which support object orientation, Perl does
   not provide any special syntax for constructing an object. Objects are
   merely Perl data structures (hashes, arrays, scalars, filehandles,
   etc.) that have been explicitly associated with a particular class.

   That explicit association is created by the built-in "bless" function,
   which is typically used within the constructor subroutine of the class.

   Here is a simple constructor:

     package File;

     sub new {
         my $class = shift;

         return bless {}, $class;
     }

   The name "new" isn't special. We could name our constructor something
   else:

     package File;

     sub load {
         my $class = shift;

         return bless {}, $class;
     }

   The modern convention for OO modules is to always use "new" as the name
   for the constructor, but there is no requirement to do so. Any
   subroutine that blesses a data structure into a class is a valid
   constructor in Perl.

   In the previous examples, the "{}" code creates a reference to an empty
   anonymous hash. The "bless" function then takes that reference and
   associates the hash with the class in $class. In the simplest case, the
   $class variable will end up containing the string "File".

   We can also use a variable to store a reference to the data structure
   that is being blessed as our object:

     sub new {
         my $class = shift;

         my $self = {};
         bless $self, $class;

         return $self;
     }

   Once we've blessed the hash referred to by $self we can start calling
   methods on it. This is useful if you want to put object initialization
   in its own separate method:

     sub new {
         my $class = shift;

         my $self = {};
         bless $self, $class;

         $self->_initialize();

         return $self;
     }

   Since the object is also a hash, you can treat it as one, using it to
   store data associated with the object. Typically, code inside the class
   can treat the hash as an accessible data structure, while code outside
   the class should always treat the object as opaque. This is called
   encapsulation. Encapsulation means that the user of an object does not
   have to know how it is implemented. The user simply calls documented
   methods on the object.

   Note, however, that (unlike most other OO languages) Perl does not
   ensure or enforce encapsulation in any way. If you want objects to
   actually be opaque you need to arrange for that yourself. This can be
   done in a variety of ways, including using "Inside-Out objects" or
   modules from CPAN.

   Objects Are Blessed; Variables Are Not

   When we bless something, we are not blessing the variable which
   contains a reference to that thing, nor are we blessing the reference
   that the variable stores; we are blessing the thing that the variable
   refers to (sometimes known as the referent). This is best demonstrated
   with this code:

     use Scalar::Util 'blessed';

     my $foo = {};
     my $bar = $foo;

     bless $foo, 'Class';
     print blessed( $bar ) // 'not blessed';    # prints "Class"

     $bar = "some other value";
     print blessed( $bar ) // 'not blessed';    # prints "not blessed"

   When we call "bless" on a variable, we are actually blessing the
   underlying data structure that the variable refers to. We are not
   blessing the reference itself, nor the variable that contains that
   reference. That's why the second call to "blessed( $bar )" returns
   false. At that point $bar is no longer storing a reference to an
   object.

   You will sometimes see older books or documentation mention "blessing a
   reference" or describe an object as a "blessed reference", but this is
   incorrect. It isn't the reference that is blessed as an object; it's
   the thing the reference refers to (i.e. the referent).

   A Class is Simply a Package
   Perl does not provide any special syntax for class definitions. A
   package is simply a namespace containing variables and subroutines. The
   only difference is that in a class, the subroutines may expect a
   reference to an object or the name of a class as the first argument.
   This is purely a matter of convention, so a class may contain both
   methods and subroutines which don't operate on an object or class.

   Each package contains a special array called @ISA. The @ISA array
   contains a list of that class's parent classes, if any. This array is
   examined when Perl does method resolution, which we will cover later.

   It is possible to manually set @ISA, and you may see this in older Perl
   code. Much older code also uses the base pragma. For new code, we
   recommend that you use the parent pragma to declare your parents.  This
   pragma will take care of setting @ISA. It will also load the parent
   classes and make sure that the package doesn't inherit from itself.

   However the parent classes are set, the package's @ISA variable will
   contain a list of those parents. This is simply a list of scalars, each
   of which is a string that corresponds to a package name.

   All classes inherit from the UNIVERSAL class implicitly. The UNIVERSAL
   class is implemented by the Perl core, and provides several default
   methods, such as "isa()", "can()", and "VERSION()".  The "UNIVERSAL"
   class will never appear in a package's @ISA variable.

   Perl only provides method inheritance as a built-in feature.  Attribute
   inheritance is left up the class to implement. See the "Writing
   Accessors" section for details.

   A Method is Simply a Subroutine
   Perl does not provide any special syntax for defining a method. A
   method is simply a regular subroutine, and is declared with "sub".
   What makes a method special is that it expects to receive either an
   object or a class name as its first argument.

   Perl does provide special syntax for method invocation, the "->"
   operator. We will cover this in more detail later.

   Most methods you write will expect to operate on objects:

     sub save {
         my $self = shift;

         open my $fh, '>', $self->path() or die $!;
         print {$fh} $self->data()       or die $!;
         close $fh                       or die $!;
     }

   Method Invocation
   Calling a method on an object is written as "$object->method".

   The left hand side of the method invocation (or arrow) operator is the
   object (or class name), and the right hand side is the method name.

     my $pod = File->new( 'perlobj.pod', $data );
     $pod->save();

   The "->" syntax is also used when dereferencing a reference. It looks
   like the same operator, but these are two different operations.

   When you call a method, the thing on the left side of the arrow is
   passed as the first argument to the method. That means when we call
   "Critter->new()", the "new()" method receives the string "Critter" as
   its first argument. When we call "$fred->speak()", the $fred variable
   is passed as the first argument to "speak()".

   Just as with any Perl subroutine, all of the arguments passed in @_ are
   aliases to the original argument. This includes the object itself.  If
   you assign directly to $_[0] you will change the contents of the
   variable that holds the reference to the object. We recommend that you
   don't do this unless you know exactly what you're doing.

   Perl knows what package the method is in by looking at the left side of
   the arrow. If the left hand side is a package name, it looks for the
   method in that package. If the left hand side is an object, then Perl
   looks for the method in the package that the object has been blessed
   into.

   If the left hand side is neither a package name nor an object, then the
   method call will cause an error, but see the section on "Method Call
   Variations" for more nuances.

   Inheritance
   We already talked about the special @ISA array and the parent pragma.

   When a class inherits from another class, any methods defined in the
   parent class are available to the child class. If you attempt to call a
   method on an object that isn't defined in its own class, Perl will also
   look for that method in any parent classes it may have.

     package File::MP3;
     use parent 'File';    # sets @File::MP3::ISA = ('File');

     my $mp3 = File::MP3->new( 'Andvari.mp3', $data );
     $mp3->save();

   Since we didn't define a "save()" method in the "File::MP3" class, Perl
   will look at the "File::MP3" class's parent classes to find the
   "save()" method. If Perl cannot find a "save()" method anywhere in the
   inheritance hierarchy, it will die.

   In this case, it finds a "save()" method in the "File" class. Note that
   the object passed to "save()" in this case is still a "File::MP3"
   object, even though the method is found in the "File" class.

   We can override a parent's method in a child class. When we do so, we
   can still call the parent class's method with the "SUPER" pseudo-class.

     sub save {
         my $self = shift;

         say 'Prepare to rock';
         $self->SUPER::save();
     }

   The "SUPER" modifier can only be used for method calls. You can't use
   it for regular subroutine calls or class methods:

     SUPER::save($thing);     # FAIL: looks for save() sub in package SUPER

     SUPER->save($thing);     # FAIL: looks for save() method in class
                              #       SUPER

     $thing->SUPER::save();   # Okay: looks for save() method in parent
                              #       classes

   How SUPER is Resolved

   The "SUPER" pseudo-class is resolved from the package where the call is
   made. It is not resolved based on the object's class. This is
   important, because it lets methods at different levels within a deep
   inheritance hierarchy each correctly call their respective parent
   methods.

     package A;

     sub new {
         return bless {}, shift;
     }

     sub speak {
         my $self = shift;

         say 'A';
     }

     package B;

     use parent -norequire, 'A';

     sub speak {
         my $self = shift;

         $self->SUPER::speak();

         say 'B';
     }

     package C;

     use parent -norequire, 'B';

     sub speak {
         my $self = shift;

         $self->SUPER::speak();

         say 'C';
     }

     my $c = C->new();
     $c->speak();

   In this example, we will get the following output:

     A
     B
     C

   This demonstrates how "SUPER" is resolved. Even though the object is
   blessed into the "C" class, the "speak()" method in the "B" class can
   still call "SUPER::speak()" and expect it to correctly look in the
   parent class of "B" (i.e the class the method call is in), not in the
   parent class of "C" (i.e. the class the object belongs to).

   There are rare cases where this package-based resolution can be a
   problem. If you copy a subroutine from one package to another, "SUPER"
   resolution will be done based on the original package.

   Multiple Inheritance

   Multiple inheritance often indicates a design problem, but Perl always
   gives you enough rope to hang yourself with if you ask for it.

   To declare multiple parents, you simply need to pass multiple class
   names to "use parent":

     package MultiChild;

     use parent 'Parent1', 'Parent2';

   Method Resolution Order

   Method resolution order only matters in the case of multiple
   inheritance. In the case of single inheritance, Perl simply looks up
   the inheritance chain to find a method:

     Grandparent
       |
     Parent
       |
     Child

   If we call a method on a "Child" object and that method is not defined
   in the "Child" class, Perl will look for that method in the "Parent"
   class and then, if necessary, in the "Grandparent" class.

   If Perl cannot find the method in any of these classes, it will die
   with an error message.

   When a class has multiple parents, the method lookup order becomes more
   complicated.

   By default, Perl does a depth-first left-to-right search for a method.
   That means it starts with the first parent in the @ISA array, and then
   searches all of its parents, grandparents, etc. If it fails to find the
   method, it then goes to the next parent in the original class's @ISA
   array and searches from there.

               SharedGreatGrandParent
               /                    \
     PaternalGrandparent       MaternalGrandparent
               \                    /
                Father        Mother
                      \      /
                       Child

   So given the diagram above, Perl will search "Child", "Father",
   "PaternalGrandparent", "SharedGreatGrandParent", "Mother", and finally
   "MaternalGrandparent". This may be a problem because now we're looking
   in "SharedGreatGrandParent" before we've checked all its derived
   classes (i.e. before we tried "Mother" and "MaternalGrandparent").

   It is possible to ask for a different method resolution order with the
   mro pragma.

     package Child;

     use mro 'c3';
     use parent 'Father', 'Mother';

   This pragma lets you switch to the "C3" resolution order. In simple
   terms, "C3" order ensures that shared parent classes are never searched
   before child classes, so Perl will now search: "Child", "Father",
   "PaternalGrandparent", "Mother" "MaternalGrandparent", and finally
   "SharedGreatGrandParent". Note however that this is not "breadth-first"
   searching: All the "Father" ancestors (except the common ancestor) are
   searched before any of the "Mother" ancestors are considered.

   The C3 order also lets you call methods in sibling classes with the
   "next" pseudo-class. See the mro documentation for more details on this
   feature.

   Method Resolution Caching

   When Perl searches for a method, it caches the lookup so that future
   calls to the method do not need to search for it again. Changing a
   class's parent class or adding subroutines to a class will invalidate
   the cache for that class.

   The mro pragma provides some functions for manipulating the method
   cache directly.

   Writing Constructors
   As we mentioned earlier, Perl provides no special constructor syntax.
   This means that a class must implement its own constructor. A
   constructor is simply a class method that returns a reference to a new
   object.

   The constructor can also accept additional parameters that define the
   object. Let's write a real constructor for the "File" class we used
   earlier:

     package File;

     sub new {
         my $class = shift;
         my ( $path, $data ) = @_;

         my $self = bless {
             path => $path,
             data => $data,
         }, $class;

         return $self;
     }

   As you can see, we've stored the path and file data in the object
   itself. Remember, under the hood, this object is still just a hash.
   Later, we'll write accessors to manipulate this data.

   For our File::MP3 class, we can check to make sure that the path we're
   given ends with ".mp3":

     package File::MP3;

     sub new {
         my $class = shift;
         my ( $path, $data ) = @_;

         die "You cannot create a File::MP3 without an mp3 extension\n"
             unless $path =~ /\.mp3\z/;

         return $class->SUPER::new(@_);
     }

   This constructor lets its parent class do the actual object
   construction.

   Attributes
   An attribute is a piece of data belonging to a particular object.
   Unlike most object-oriented languages, Perl provides no special syntax
   or support for declaring and manipulating attributes.

   Attributes are often stored in the object itself. For example, if the
   object is an anonymous hash, we can store the attribute values in the
   hash using the attribute name as the key.

   While it's possible to refer directly to these hash keys outside of the
   class, it's considered a best practice to wrap all access to the
   attribute with accessor methods.

   This has several advantages. Accessors make it easier to change the
   implementation of an object later while still preserving the original
   API.

   An accessor lets you add additional code around attribute access. For
   example, you could apply a default to an attribute that wasn't set in
   the constructor, or you could validate that a new value for the
   attribute is acceptable.

   Finally, using accessors makes inheritance much simpler. Subclasses can
   use the accessors rather than having to know how a parent class is
   implemented internally.

   Writing Accessors

   As with constructors, Perl provides no special accessor declaration
   syntax, so classes must provide explicitly written accessor methods.
   There are two common types of accessors, read-only and read-write.

   A simple read-only accessor simply gets the value of a single
   attribute:

     sub path {
         my $self = shift;

         return $self->{path};
     }

   A read-write accessor will allow the caller to set the value as well as
   get it:

     sub path {
         my $self = shift;

         if (@_) {
             $self->{path} = shift;
         }

         return $self->{path};
     }

   An Aside About Smarter and Safer Code
   Our constructor and accessors are not very smart. They don't check that
   a $path is defined, nor do they check that a $path is a valid
   filesystem path.

   Doing these checks by hand can quickly become tedious. Writing a bunch
   of accessors by hand is also incredibly tedious. There are a lot of
   modules on CPAN that can help you write safer and more concise code,
   including the modules we recommend in perlootut.

   Method Call Variations
   Perl supports several other ways to call methods besides the
   "$object->method()" usage we've seen so far.

   Method Names as Strings

   Perl lets you use a scalar variable containing a string as a method
   name:

     my $file = File->new( $path, $data );

     my $method = 'save';
     $file->$method();

   This works exactly like calling "$file->save()". This can be very
   useful for writing dynamic code. For example, it allows you to pass a
   method name to be called as a parameter to another method.

   Class Names as Strings

   Perl also lets you use a scalar containing a string as a class name:

     my $class = 'File';

     my $file = $class->new( $path, $data );

   Again, this allows for very dynamic code.

   Subroutine References as Methods

   You can also use a subroutine reference as a method:

     my $sub = sub {
         my $self = shift;

         $self->save();
     };

     $file->$sub();

   This is exactly equivalent to writing "$sub->($file)". You may see this
   idiom in the wild combined with a call to "can":

     if ( my $meth = $object->can('foo') ) {
         $object->$meth();
     }

   Deferencing Method Call

   Perl also lets you use a dereferenced scalar reference in a method
   call. That's a mouthful, so let's look at some code:

     $file->${ \'save' };
     $file->${ returns_scalar_ref() };
     $file->${ \( returns_scalar() ) };
     $file->${ returns_ref_to_sub_ref() };

   This works if the dereference produces a string or a subroutine
   reference.

   Method Calls on Filehandles

   Under the hood, Perl filehandles are instances of the "IO::Handle" or
   "IO::File" class. Once you have an open filehandle, you can call
   methods on it. Additionally, you can call methods on the "STDIN",
   "STDOUT", and "STDERR" filehandles.

     open my $fh, '>', 'path/to/file';
     $fh->autoflush();
     $fh->print('content');

     STDOUT->autoflush();

   Invoking Class Methods
   Because Perl allows you to use barewords for package names and
   subroutine names, it sometimes interprets a bareword's meaning
   incorrectly. For example, the construct "Class->new()" can be
   interpreted as either "'Class'->new()" or "Class()->new()".  In
   English, that second interpretation reads as "call a subroutine named
   Class(), then call new() as a method on the return value of Class()".
   If there is a subroutine named "Class()" in the current namespace, Perl
   will always interpret "Class->new()" as the second alternative: a call
   to "new()" on the object  returned by a call to "Class()"

   You can force Perl to use the first interpretation (i.e. as a method
   call on the class named "Class") in two ways. First, you can append a
   "::" to the class name:

       Class::->new()

   Perl will always interpret this as a method call.

   Alternatively, you can quote the class name:

       'Class'->new()

   Of course, if the class name is in a scalar Perl will do the right
   thing as well:

       my $class = 'Class';
       $class->new();

   Indirect Object Syntax

   Outside of the file handle case, use of this syntax is discouraged as
   it can confuse the Perl interpreter. See below for more details.

   Perl supports another method invocation syntax called "indirect object"
   notation. This syntax is called "indirect" because the method comes
   before the object it is being invoked on.

   This syntax can be used with any class or object method:

       my $file = new File $path, $data;
       save $file;

   We recommend that you avoid this syntax, for several reasons.

   First, it can be confusing to read. In the above example, it's not
   clear if "save" is a method provided by the "File" class or simply a
   subroutine that expects a file object as its first argument.

   When used with class methods, the problem is even worse. Because Perl
   allows subroutine names to be written as barewords, Perl has to guess
   whether the bareword after the method is a class name or subroutine
   name. In other words, Perl can resolve the syntax as either "File->new(
   $path, $data )" or "new( File( $path, $data ) )".

   To parse this code, Perl uses a heuristic based on what package names
   it has seen, what subroutines exist in the current package, what
   barewords it has previously seen, and other input. Needless to say,
   heuristics can produce very surprising results!

   Older documentation (and some CPAN modules) encouraged this syntax,
   particularly for constructors, so you may still find it in the wild.
   However, we encourage you to avoid using it in new code.

   You can force Perl to interpret the bareword as a class name by
   appending "::" to it, like we saw earlier:

     my $file = new File:: $path, $data;

   "bless", "blessed", and "ref"
   As we saw earlier, an object is simply a data structure that has been
   blessed into a class via the "bless" function. The "bless" function can
   take either one or two arguments:

     my $object = bless {}, $class;
     my $object = bless {};

   In the first form, the anonymous hash is being blessed into the class
   in $class. In the second form, the anonymous hash is blessed into the
   current package.

   The second form is strongly discouraged, because it breaks the ability
   of a subclass to reuse the parent's constructor, but you may still run
   across it in existing code.

   If you want to know whether a particular scalar refers to an object,
   you can use the "blessed" function exported by Scalar::Util, which is
   shipped with the Perl core.

     use Scalar::Util 'blessed';

     if ( defined blessed($thing) ) { ... }

   If $thing refers to an object, then this function returns the name of
   the package the object has been blessed into. If $thing doesn't contain
   a reference to a blessed object, the "blessed" function returns
   "undef".

   Note that "blessed($thing)" will also return false if $thing has been
   blessed into a class named "0". This is a possible, but quite
   pathological. Don't create a class named "0" unless you know what
   you're doing.

   Similarly, Perl's built-in "ref" function treats a reference to a
   blessed object specially. If you call "ref($thing)" and $thing holds a
   reference to an object, it will return the name of the class that the
   object has been blessed into.

   If you simply want to check that a variable contains an object
   reference, we recommend that you use "defined blessed($object)", since
   "ref" returns true values for all references, not just objects.

   The UNIVERSAL Class
   All classes automatically inherit from the UNIVERSAL class, which is
   built-in to the Perl core. This class provides a number of methods, all
   of which can be called on either a class or an object. You can also
   choose to override some of these methods in your class. If you do so,
   we recommend that you follow the built-in semantics described below.

   isa($class)
       The "isa" method returns true if the object is a member of the
       class in $class, or a member of a subclass of $class.

       If you override this method, it should never throw an exception.

   DOES($role)
       The "DOES" method returns true if its object claims to perform the
       role $role. By default, this is equivalent to "isa". This method is
       provided for use by object system extensions that implement roles,
       like "Moose" and "Role::Tiny".

       You can also override "DOES" directly in your own classes. If you
       override this method, it should never throw an exception.

   can($method)
       The "can" method checks to see if the class or object it was called
       on has a method named $method. This checks for the method in the
       class and all of its parents. If the method exists, then a
       reference to the subroutine is returned. If it does not then
       "undef" is returned.

       If your class responds to method calls via "AUTOLOAD", you may want
       to overload "can" to return a subroutine reference for methods
       which your "AUTOLOAD" method handles.

       If you override this method, it should never throw an exception.

   VERSION($need)
       The "VERSION" method returns the version number of the class
       (package).

       If the $need argument is given then it will check that the current
       version (as defined by the $VERSION variable in the package) is
       greater than or equal to $need; it will die if this is not the
       case. This method is called automatically by the "VERSION" form of
       "use".

           use Package 1.2 qw(some imported subs);
           # implies:
           Package->VERSION(1.2);

       We recommend that you use this method to access another package's
       version, rather than looking directly at $Package::VERSION. The
       package you are looking at could have overridden the "VERSION"
       method.

       We also recommend using this method to check whether a module has a
       sufficient version. The internal implementation uses the version
       module to make sure that different types of version numbers are
       compared correctly.

   AUTOLOAD
   If you call a method that doesn't exist in a class, Perl will throw an
   error. However, if that class or any of its parent classes defines an
   "AUTOLOAD" method, that "AUTOLOAD" method is called instead.

   "AUTOLOAD" is called as a regular method, and the caller will not know
   the difference. Whatever value your "AUTOLOAD" method returns is
   returned to the caller.

   The fully qualified method name that was called is available in the
   $AUTOLOAD package global for your class. Since this is a global, if you
   want to refer to do it without a package name prefix under "strict
   'vars'", you need to declare it.

     # XXX - this is a terrible way to implement accessors, but it makes
     # for a simple example.
     our $AUTOLOAD;
     sub AUTOLOAD {
         my $self = shift;

         # Remove qualifier from original method name...
         my $called =  $AUTOLOAD =~ s/.*:://r;

         # Is there an attribute of that name?
         die "No such attribute: $called"
             unless exists $self->{$called};

         # If so, return it...
         return $self->{$called};
     }

     sub DESTROY { } # see below

   Without the "our $AUTOLOAD" declaration, this code will not compile
   under the strict pragma.

   As the comment says, this is not a good way to implement accessors.
   It's slow and too clever by far. However, you may see this as a way to
   provide accessors in older Perl code. See perlootut for recommendations
   on OO coding in Perl.

   If your class does have an "AUTOLOAD" method, we strongly recommend
   that you override "can" in your class as well. Your overridden "can"
   method should return a subroutine reference for any method that your
   "AUTOLOAD" responds to.

   Destructors
   When the last reference to an object goes away, the object is
   destroyed. If you only have one reference to an object stored in a
   lexical scalar, the object is destroyed when that scalar goes out of
   scope. If you store the object in a package global, that object may not
   go out of scope until the program exits.

   If you want to do something when the object is destroyed, you can
   define a "DESTROY" method in your class. This method will always be
   called by Perl at the appropriate time, unless the method is empty.

   This is called just like any other method, with the object as the first
   argument. It does not receive any additional arguments. However, the
   $_[0] variable will be read-only in the destructor, so you cannot
   assign a value to it.

   If your "DESTROY" method throws an error, this error will be ignored.
   It will not be sent to "STDERR" and it will not cause the program to
   die. However, if your destructor is running inside an "eval {}" block,
   then the error will change the value of $@.

   Because "DESTROY" methods can be called at any time, you should
   localize any global variables you might update in your "DESTROY". In
   particular, if you use "eval {}" you should localize $@, and if you use
   "system" or backticks you should localize $?.

   If you define an "AUTOLOAD" in your class, then Perl will call your
   "AUTOLOAD" to handle the "DESTROY" method. You can prevent this by
   defining an empty "DESTROY", like we did in the autoloading example.
   You can also check the value of $AUTOLOAD and return without doing
   anything when called to handle "DESTROY".

   Global Destruction

   The order in which objects are destroyed during the global destruction
   before the program exits is unpredictable. This means that any objects
   contained by your object may already have been destroyed. You should
   check that a contained object is defined before calling a method on it:

     sub DESTROY {
         my $self = shift;

         $self->{handle}->close() if $self->{handle};
     }

   You can use the "${^GLOBAL_PHASE}" variable to detect if you are
   currently in the global destruction phase:

     sub DESTROY {
         my $self = shift;

         return if ${^GLOBAL_PHASE} eq 'DESTRUCT';

         $self->{handle}->close();
     }

   Note that this variable was added in Perl 5.14.0. If you want to detect
   the global destruction phase on older versions of Perl, you can use the
   "Devel::GlobalDestruction" module on CPAN.

   If your "DESTROY" method issues a warning during global destruction,
   the Perl interpreter will append the string " during global
   destruction" to the warning.

   During global destruction, Perl will always garbage collect objects
   before unblessed references. See "PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL" in perlhacktips
   for more information about global destruction.

   Non-Hash Objects
   All the examples so far have shown objects based on a blessed hash.
   However, it's possible to bless any type of data structure or referent,
   including scalars, globs, and subroutines. You may see this sort of
   thing when looking at code in the wild.

   Here's an example of a module as a blessed scalar:

     package Time;

     use strict;
     use warnings;

     sub new {
         my $class = shift;

         my $time = time;
         return bless \$time, $class;
     }

     sub epoch {
         my $self = shift;
         return ${ $self };
     }

     my $time = Time->new();
     print $time->epoch();

   Inside-Out objects
   In the past, the Perl community experimented with a technique called
   "inside-out objects". An inside-out object stores its data outside of
   the object's reference, indexed on a unique property of the object,
   such as its memory address, rather than in the object itself. This has
   the advantage of enforcing the encapsulation of object attributes,
   since their data is not stored in the object itself.

   This technique was popular for a while (and was recommended in Damian
   Conway's Perl Best Practices), but never achieved universal adoption.
   The Object::InsideOut module on CPAN provides a comprehensive
   implementation of this technique, and you may see it or other inside-
   out modules in the wild.

   Here is a simple example of the technique, using the
   Hash::Util::FieldHash core module. This module was added to the core to
   support inside-out object implementations.

     package Time;

     use strict;
     use warnings;

     use Hash::Util::FieldHash 'fieldhash';

     fieldhash my %time_for;

     sub new {
         my $class = shift;

         my $self = bless \( my $object ), $class;

         $time_for{$self} = time;

         return $self;
     }

     sub epoch {
         my $self = shift;

         return $time_for{$self};
     }

     my $time = Time->new;
     print $time->epoch;

   Pseudo-hashes
   The pseudo-hash feature was an experimental feature introduced in
   earlier versions of Perl and removed in 5.10.0. A pseudo-hash is an
   array reference which can be accessed using named keys like a hash. You
   may run in to some code in the wild which uses it. See the fields
   pragma for more information.

SEE ALSO

   A kinder, gentler tutorial on object-oriented programming in Perl can
   be found in perlootut. You should also check out perlmodlib for some
   style guides on constructing both modules and classes.





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