NAME

Eve::Class - a class that all other library classes use as a parent.

SYNOPSIS

    use parent qw(Eve::Class);

    sub init {
        my ($self, %arg_hash) = @_;

        $self->{'_private_property'} = 'Private value';
        $self->{'public_property'} = 'Public value';
        $self->_private_method();
        $self->public_method();

        return;
    }

DESCRIPTION

Eve::Class is an abstract class whose functionality is used in derived classes in order to avoid initialization code duplication and make routine procedures easier.

Implicit accessors

Another purpose of this class is to provide a mechanism that simplifies access to object properties.

Every property can be accessed using $foo-name> notation. If there is additional processing required before getting or setting a property custom getters and setters can be used. They can be defined as methods by prefixing the property name with 'get_' or 'set_'. In this case they will be called instead of accessing the property directly.

    package Foo;

    use parent qw(Eve::Class);

    sub init {
        my $self = shift;

        $self->{'name'} = 'some value';

        return;
    }

    sub set_name {
        my ($self, $value) = @_;

        $self->{'name'} = lc($value);
    }

    1;

    # Later ...

    $foo->name = 'Another Value';

METHODS

new()

This method is the constructor. It can be called both on the class and on the object. Calling the constructor on an existing object will return a new object of the instance's class.

    package Foo;

    use parent qw(Eve::Class);

    1;

    # Later ...

    my $foo1 = Foo->new('Your arguments here');
    my $foo2 = $foo1->new('Your new arguments here');

Arguments

An arbitrary number of arguments which will be later passed to the init() method.

Returns

A new instance of the class that the method is being called on.

init()

This method is called after an object has been instantiated using the new() method, all parameters that have been passed to the constructor are passed to this method also.

If you need the object to have certain properties, you need to explicitly define them as hash keys inside this method.

    package Foo;
    use parent qw(Eve::Class);

    sub init {
        my ($self, %arg_hash) = @_;

        $self->{'_private_property'} = 'Private value';
        $self->{'public_property'} = 'Public value';

        return;
    }

    1;

After that you can access the object's properties in this manner:

    my $foo1 = Foo->new();
    print $foo1->public_property;
    $foo1->public_property = 'Another value';
    $foo1->_private_property = 'Whoops!';

Please note that there is no mechanism to make properties really private or protected, which means that you can access all properties from outside, no matter what they are called.

Arguments

Note that this method should not be called directly. The new() method must be called instead, and all its arguments will be passed directly to this method.

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2012 Igor Zinovyev.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.

See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.

AUTHOR

Sergey Konoplev

cpanm Eve

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Eve