NAME
    Class::Forward - Traverse Class Namspaces

VERSION
    version 0.100001

SYNOPSIS
        package MyApp;

        use Class::Forward;

        sub class {

            my ($self, $shorthand, @arguments) = @_;

            my $class = Class::Forward->new(namespace => ref $self);

            return $class->forward($shorthand, @arguments);

        }

        package main;

        my $app  = MyApp->new;
        my $data = $app->class('data.new'); # returns a new MyApp::Data object

DESCRIPTION
    Class::Forward is designed to resolve Perl namespaces from shorthand
    (which is simply a file-system path-like specification). Class::Forward
    can also be used to dispatch method calls using said shorthand. See the
    following exported functions for examples on how this can be used.

EXPORTS
  clsf
    The exported function clsf is responsible for resolving your shorthand.
    The following is an example of how it functions:

        package App::Store;

        use CGI;
        use Class::Forward;

        clsf;                             # returns App::Store
        clsf './user';                    # returns App::Store::User
        clsf './user.new', name => 'N30'; # return a new App::Store::User object
        clsf './user_profile.new';        # ... App::Store::UserProfile object
        clsf '../user';                   # returns App::User
        clsf '//';                        # returns App; (top of the calling class)
        clsf '//.new';                    # returns a new App object
        clsf '//view';                    # ... returns App::View
        clsf '//view.new';                # ... returns a new App::View object
        clsf '//view.new.render';         # ... dispatches methods in succession
        clsf 'cgi';                       # returns App::Store::Cgi
        clsf '/cgi';                      # returns Cgi (or CGI if already loaded)

        1;

    The clsf function takes two arguments, the shorthand to be translated,
    and an optional list of arguments to be passed to the last method
    appended to the shorthand.

  clsr
    The exported function clsr is responsible for resolving your shorthand.
    The following is an example of how it functions:

        package App::Store;

        use CGI;
        use Class::Forward;

        clsr;                             # returns /app/store
        clsr './user';                    # returns /app/store/user
        clsr './user.new', name => 'N30'; # returns /app/store/user
        clsr './user_profile';            # returns /app/store/user_profile
        clsr '../user';                   # returns /app/user
        clsr '//';                        # returns /app
        clsr '//.new';                    # returns /app
        clsr '//view';                    # returns /app/view
        clsr '//view.new';                # returns /app/view
        clsr '//view.new.render';         # returns /app/view
        clsr 'cgi';                       # returns /app/store/cgi
        clsr '/cgi';                      # returns /cgi

        1;

    The clsr function takes three arguments, the shorthand to be translated
    (required), the offset (optional level of namspace nodes to omit
    left-to-right), and the delimeter to be used to generate the resulting
    path (defaults to forward-slash).

METHODS
  namespace
    The new method is used to instantiate a new instance.

  namespace
    The namespace method is used to get/set the root namespace used as an
    anchor for all resolution requests.

        my $namespace = $self->namespace('MyApp');

  forward
    The forward method is used to resolve Perl namespaces from path-like
    shorthand.

        say $self->forward('/my_app/example');
        # prints MyApp::Example

  reverse
    The reverse method is used to generate path-like shorthand from Perl
    namespaces.

        say $self->forward('MyApp::Example');
        # prints /my_app/example

        say $self->forward('MyApp::Example', 1);
        # prints example

        say $self->forward('MyApp::Example', 0, '_');
        # prints _my_app_example

SEE ALSO
    Along my travels I recall visiting a similar module on the CPAN called
    Namespace::Dispatch which provides somewhat of the same functionality.

AUTHOR
    Al Newkirk <anewkirk@ana.io>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
    This software is copyright (c) 2012 by Al Newkirk.

    This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
    the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.