NAME

Pixie - The magic data pixie

SYNOPSIS

  use Pixie;

  my $pixie = Pixie->new->connect( 'memory' );
  my $obj   = SomeObject->new;

  # Note: this API will be changing! See below for details.

  # Store an object
  my $cookie = $pixie->insert( $obj );

  undef( $obj );

  # Fetch it back
  my $obj = $pixie->get( $cookie );

  # Give it a name
  $pixie->bind_name( "Some Name" => $obj );
  my $obj2 = $pixie->get_object_named( "Some Name" );

  # Delete it
  $pixie->delete( $cookie ) || warn "eek!";

  # some stores need deploying before you can use them:
  $pixie = Pixie->deploy( 'dbi:mysql:dbname=px_test' );

DESCRIPTION

Pixie is yet another object persistence tool. The basic goal of Pixie is that it should be possible to throw any object you want at a data pixie and the pixie will just tuck it away in its magic sack, giving you a cookie in exchange. Then, minutes, hours or days later, you can show the pixie your cookie and get the object back.

No schemas. No complex querying. No refusing to handle blessed arrays.

How does pixie do this? Well... when we said 'any object' we were being slightly disingenuous. As far as Pixie is concerned 'any object' means 'any object that satisfies any of these criteria':

• The inserted object is a blessed hash.

• The inserted object is a blessed array

• The inserted object is 'complicit' with Pixie, see Pixie::Complicity

You'll note that we don't include 'blessed arbitrary scalars' in this list. This is because, during testing we found that the majority of objects that are represented as blessed scalars are often using XS to store extra data that Storable and Data::Dumper can't see, which leads to all sorts of problems later. So, if you use a blessed scalar as your object representation then you'll have to use the complicity features. Sorry.

Pixie can additionally be used to name objects in the store, and fetch them later on with that name.

AVAILABLE STORE TYPES

At the time of writing the following stores were available:

Memory

Simple memory store, good for testing. See Pixie::Store::Memory.

  $pixie->connect( 'memory' );

Berkeley DB

A Berkeley DB store, also good for testing (especially if you want to store values across tests). See Pixie::Store::BerkeleyDB.

  $pixie->connect( "bdb:$path_to_dbfile" );

DBI

DBI-based stores are good for production. See Pixie::Store::DBI and subclasses, and DBI for details on DSN specs to use.

In general:

  $pixie->connect( $dbi_spec, %args );

For example:

  $pixie->connect( "dbi:SQLite:dbname=$path_to_dbfile" );
  $pixie->connect( 'dbi:mysql:dbname=test', user => 'foo', pass => 'bar' );
  $pixie->connect( 'dbi:Pg:dbname=test;user=foo;pass=bar' );

See Pixie::Store and its sub-classes for more details on the available types of stores and the DSN's to use.

CONSTRUCTOR

$px = Pixie->new

Create a new Pixie. You'll have to connect() to a data store before you can really do anything.

METHODS

$px->deploy( $dsn [, @args ] )

Deploy a Pixie store to the specified $dsn. This is not required for all types of store (see Pixie::Store and subclasses), but deploying to those stores won't hurt so if you want to make your code generic then go for it.

$px->connect( $dsn [, @args ] )

Connect the pixie to a store specified by $dsn. Note that you may need to deploy() the store before connecting to it.

$cookie = $px->insert( $object );

Stores the $object and returns a $cookie which you can use to retrieve the $object in the future.

$obj = $px->get( $cookie )

Get the object associated with $cookie from the pixie's store.

$px->delete( $obj || $cookie )

Delete an object from the pixie's store given a $cookie, or the $object itself.

$px->bind_name( $name => $object )

Gives a $name to the $object you've specified, so that you can retrieve it in the future using get_object_named().

Returns the cookie of the Pixie::Name associated with the $object, though this usage is deprecated and will likely be removed in the next release.

$obj = $px->get_object_named( $name )

Gets the named object from the pixie's store.

$bool = $px->unbind_name( $name )

Stop associating $name with an object in the pixie's store. This doesn't delete the object itself from the store (see delete() for that).

Returns true if the $name was unbound, false if not (ie: if it wasn't bound in the first place).

PLANNED API CHANGES

Some methods will be deprecated in the near future in an effort to create a more consistent API. Here is an overview of the planned changes:

$cookie = $px->store( [ $name => ] $object )

This will replace insert(), and will make naming objects easier.

$obj = $px->fetch( $name || $cookie )

This will replace get() and get_object_named().

$obj->remove( $obj || $cookie || $name )

This will replace delete() and unbind_name().

SEE ALSO

Pixie::Complicity -- Sometimes Pixie can't make an object persistent without help from the object's class. In that case you need to make the class 'complicit' with Pixie. You'll typically need to do this with XS based classes that use a simple scalar as their perl visible object representation, or with closure based classes.

Pixie::FinalMethods -- There are some methods that Pixie requires to behave in a particular way, not subject to the vagaries of overloading. One option would be to write a bunch of private subroutines and methods within Pixie, but very often it makes sense to move the behaviour onto the objects being stored. Pixie::FinalMethods describes how we achieve this.

Pixie::Store is the abstract interface to physical storage. If you want to write a new backend for pixie, start here.

WITH THANKS

Jean Louis Leroy, author of Tangram, for letting us use ideas and code from the Tangram test suite.

AUTHORS

Pixie sprang from the mind of James Duncan <james@fotango.com>. Piers Cawley <pdcawley@bofh.org.uk> and Leon Brocard <acme@astray.org> are his co conspiritors.

Steve Purkis <spurkis@cpan.org> is helping to maintain the module.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2002-2004 Fotango Ltd.

This software is released under the same license as Perl itself.

cpanm Pixie

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Pixie