NAME
Object::Tiny - Class building as simple as it gets
SYNOPSIS
# Define a class
package Foo;
use Object::Tiny qw{ bar baz };
1;
# Use the class
my $object = Foo->new( bar => 1 );
print "bar is " . $object->bar . "\n";
DESCRIPTION
There's a whole bunch of class builders out there. In fact, creating a
class builder seems to be something of a rite of passage (this is my
fifth, at least).
Unfortunately, most of the time I want a class builder I'm in a hurry
and sketching out lots of fairly simple data classes with fairly simple
structure, mostly just read-only accessors, and that's about it.
Often this is for code that won't end up on CPAN, so adding a small
dependency doesn't matter much. I just want to be able to define these
classes FAST.
By which I mean LESS typing than writing them by hand, not more. And I
don't need all those weird complex features that bloat out the code and
take over the whole way I build modules.
And so, I present yet another member of the Tiny family of modules,
Object::Tiny.
The goal here is really just to save me some typing. There's others that
could do the job just fine, but I want something that does as little as
possible and creates code the same way I'd have written it by hand
anyway.
To use Object::Tiny, just call it with a list of accessors to be
created.
use Object::Tiny 'foo', 'bar';
For a large list, I lay it out like this...
use Object::Tiny qw{
item_font_face
item_font_color
item_font_size
item_text_content
item_display_time
seperator_font_face
seperator_font_color
seperator_font_size
seperator_text_content
};
This will create a bunch of simple accessors, and set the inheritance to
be the child of Object::Tiny.
Object::Tiny is empty other than a basic "new" constructor which does
the following
sub new {
my $class = shift;
return bless { @_ }, $class;
}
In fact, if doing the following in your class gets annoying...
sub new {
my $class = shift;
my $self = $class->SUPER::new( @_ );
# Extra checking and such
...
return $self;
}
... then feel free to ditch the SUPER call and just create the hash
yourself! It's not going to make a lick of different and there's nothing
magic going on under the covers you might break.
And that's really all there is to it. Let a million simple data classes
bloom. Features? We don't need no stinking features.
Handling Subclasses
If the class you are using Object::Tiny for is already a subclass of
another Object::Tiny class (or a subclass of anything else) it doesn't
really work to make the class use multiple inheritance.
So in this case, Object::Tiny will create the accessors you specify, but
WON'T make it a subclass of Object::Tiny.
Why bother when Class::Accessor::* already does the same thing?
As a class builder, Object::Tiny inevitably is compared to
Class::Accessor and related modules. They seem so similar, so why would
I reimplement it?
The answer is that for experienced developers that don't need or want
hand-holding, Object::Tiny is just outright better, faster or cheaper on
every single metric than Class::Accessor::Fast, which is the most
comparable member of the Class::Accessor::* family.
Object::Tiny is 93% smaller than Class::Accessor::Fast
Class::Accessor::Fast requires about 125k of memory to load.
Object::Tiny requires about 8k of memory to load.
Object::Tiny is 75% more terse to use than Class::Accessor::Fast
Object::Tiny is used with the least possible number of keystrokes (short
of making the actual name Object::Tiny smaller).
And it requires no ugly constructor methods.
I mean really, what sort of a method name is 'mk_ro_accessors'. That
sort of thing went out of style in the early nineties.
Using Class::Accessor::Fast...
package Foo::Bar;
use base 'Class::Accessor::Fast';
Foo::Bar->mk_ro_accessors(qw{ foo bar baz });
Using Object::Tiny...
package Foo::Bar;
use Object::Tiny qw{ foo bar baz };
Further, Object::Tiny lets you pass your params in directly, without
having to wrap them in an additional HASH reference that will just be
copied ANYWAY inside the constructor.
Using Class::Accessor::Fast...
my $object = Foo::Bar->new( {
foo => 1,
bar => 2,
baz => 3,
} );
Using Object::Tiny...
my $object = Foo::Bar->new(
foo => 1,
bar => 2,
baz => 3,
);
Object::Tiny constructors are 110% faster than Class::Accessor::Fast
Object::Tiny accessors are identical in speed to Class::Accessor::Fast
accessors, but Object::Tiny constructors are TWICE as fast as
Class::Accessor::Fast constructors, DESPITE C:A:Fast forcing you to pass
by reference (which is typically done for speed reasons).
Benchmarking constructor plus accessors...
Rate accessor tiny
accessor 100949/s -- -45%
tiny 182382/s 81% --
Benchmarking constructor alone...
Rate accessor tiny
accessor 156470/s -- -54%
tiny 342231/s 119% --
Benchmarking accessors alone...
Rate tiny accessor
tiny 81.0/s -- -0%
accessor 81.0/s 0% --
Object::Tiny pollutes your API 95% less than Class::Accessor::Fast
Object::Tiny adds two methods to your class, "new" and "import". The
"new" constructor is so trivial you can just ignore it and use your own
if you wish, and the "import" will shortcut and do nothing (it is used
to implement the "use Object::Tiny qw{ foo bar baz };" syntax itself).
So if you make your own import, you can ignore the Object::Tiny one.
Class::Accessor::Fast isn't quite as light, adding all sorts of useless
extra public methods (why on earth would you want to add method
accessors at run-time?).
Here's what the classes used in the benchmark end up like.
DB<1> use Class::Inspector
DB<2> x Class::Inspector->methods('Foo_Bar_Tiny');
0 ARRAY(0xfda780)
0 'bar'
1 'baz'
2 'foo'
3 'import'
4 'new'
DB<3> x Class::Inspector->methods('Foo_Bar_Accessor');
0 ARRAY(0xfdb3c8)
0 '_bar_accessor'
1 '_baz_accessor'
2 '_carp'
3 '_croak'
4 '_foo_accessor'
5 '_mk_accessors'
6 'accessor_name_for'
7 'bar'
8 'baz'
9 'best_practice_accessor_name_for'
10 'best_practice_mutator_name_for'
11 'follow_best_practice'
12 'foo'
13 'get'
14 'make_accessor'
15 'make_ro_accessor'
16 'make_wo_accessor'
17 'mk_accessors'
18 'mk_ro_accessors'
19 'mk_wo_accessors'
20 'mutator_name_for'
21 'new'
22 'set'
As you can see, Object::Tiny adds 2 methods to your class,
Class::Accessor adds 16 methods, plus one extra one for every accessor.
Object::Tiny doesn't have any of the caveats of Class::Accessor::Fast
When you call use Object::Tiny qw{ foo bar baz } it isn't treated as
some sort of specification for the class, it's just a list of accessors
you want made for you.
So if you want to customize "foo" you don't need to get into contortions
with "pure" base classes or calling alternate internal methods. Just
make your own "foo" method and remove "foo" from the list passed to the
"use" call.
Object::Tiny is more back-compatible than Class::Accessor::Fast
Class::Accessor::Fast has a minimum Perl dependency of 5.005002.
Object::Tiny has a minimum Perl dependency of 5.004.
Object::Tiny has no module dependencies whatsoever
Object::Tiny does not load ANYTHING at all outside of its own single .pm
file.
So Object::Tiny will never get confused in odd situations due to old or
weird versions of other modules (Class::Accessor::Fast has a dependency
on base.pm, which has some caveats of its own).
SUPPORT
Bugs should be reported via the CPAN bug tracker at
<http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Object-Tiny>
For other issues, contact the author.
AUTHOR
Adam Kennedy <adamk@cpan.org>
SEE ALSO
Config::Tiny
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2007 - 2011 Adam Kennedy.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included
with this module.