NAME Class::Accessor::Grouped - Lets you build groups of accessors SYNOPSIS use base 'Class::Accessor::Grouped'; # make basic accessors for objects __PACKAGE__->mk_group_accessors(simple => qw(id name email)); # make accessor that works for objects and classes __PACKAGE__->mk_group_accessors(inherited => 'awesome_level'); # make an accessor which calls a custom pair of getters/setters sub get_column { ... this will be called when you do $obj->name() ... } sub set_column { ... this will be called when you do $obj->name('foo') ... } __PACKAGE__->mk_group_accessors(column => 'name'); DESCRIPTION This class lets you build groups of accessors that will call different getters and setters. The documentation of this module still requires a lot of work (volunteers welcome >.>), but in the meantime you can refer to this post for more information. Notes on accessor names In general method names in Perl are considered identifiers, and as such need to conform to the identifier specification of "qr/\A[A-Z_a-z][0-9A-Z_a-z]*\z/". While it is rather easy to invoke methods with non-standard names ("$obj->${\"anything goes"}"), it is not possible to properly declare such methods without the use of Sub::Name. Since this module must be able to function identically with and without its optional dependencies, starting with version 0.10008 attempting to declare an accessor with a non-standard name is a fatal error (such operations would silently succeed since version 0.08004, as long as Sub::Name is present, or otherwise would result in a syntax error during a string eval). Unfortunately in the years since 0.08004 a rather large body of code accumulated in the wild that does attempt to declare accessors with funny names. One notable perpetrator is DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader, which under certain conditions could create accessors of the "column" group which start with numbers and/or some other punctuation (the proper way would be to declare columns with the "accessor" attribute set to "undef"). Therefore an escape mechanism is provided via the environment variable "CAG_ILLEGAL_ACCESSOR_NAME_OK". When set to a true value, one warning is issued per class on attempts to declare an accessor with a non-conforming name, and as long as Sub::Name is available all accessors will be properly created. Regardless of this setting, accessor names containing nulls "\0" are disallowed, due to various deficiencies in perl itself. If your code base has too many instances of illegal accessor declarations, and a fix is not feasible due to time constraints, it is possible to disable the warnings altogether by setting $ENV{CAG_ILLEGAL_ACCESSOR_NAME_OK} to "DO_NOT_WARN" (observe capitalization). METHODS mk_group_accessors __PACKAGE__->mk_group_accessors(simple => 'hair_length', [ hair_color => 'hc' ]); Arguments: $group, @fieldspec Returns: none Creates a set of accessors in a given group. $group is the name of the accessor group for the generated accessors; they will call get_$group($field) on get and set_$group($field, $value) on set. If you want to mimic Class::Accessor's mk_accessors $group has to be 'simple' to tell Class::Accessor::Grouped to use its own get_simple and set_simple methods. @fieldspec is a list of field/accessor names; if a fieldspec is a scalar this is used as both field and accessor name, if a listref it is expected to be of the form [ $accessor, $field ]. mk_group_ro_accessors __PACKAGE__->mk_group_ro_accessors(simple => 'birthdate', [ social_security_number => 'ssn' ]); Arguments: $group, @fieldspec Returns: none Creates a set of read only accessors in a given group. Identical to "mk_group_accessors" but accessors will throw an error if passed a value rather than setting the value. mk_group_wo_accessors __PACKAGE__->mk_group_wo_accessors(simple => 'lie', [ subject => 'subj' ]); Arguments: $group, @fieldspec Returns: none Creates a set of write only accessors in a given group. Identical to "mk_group_accessors" but accessors will throw an error if not passed a value rather than getting the value. get_simple Arguments: $field Returns: $value Simple getter for hash-based objects which returns the value for the field name passed as an argument. set_simple Arguments: $field, $new_value Returns: $new_value Simple setter for hash-based objects which sets and then returns the value for the field name passed as an argument. get_inherited Arguments: $field Returns: $value Simple getter for Classes and hash-based objects which returns the value for the field name passed as an argument. This behaves much like Class::Data::Accessor where the field can be set in a base class, inherited and changed in subclasses, and inherited and changed for object instances. set_inherited Arguments: $field, $new_value Returns: $new_value Simple setter for Classes and hash-based objects which sets and then returns the value for the field name passed as an argument. When called on a hash-based object it will set the appropriate hash key value. When called on a class, it will set a class level variable. Note:: This method will die if you try to set an object variable on a non hash-based object. get_component_class Arguments: $field Returns: $value Gets the value of the specified component class. __PACKAGE__->mk_group_accessors('component_class' => 'result_class'); $self->result_class->method(); ## same as $self->get_component_class('result_class')->method(); set_component_class Arguments: $field, $class Returns: $new_value Inherited accessor that automatically loads the specified class before setting it. This method will die if the specified class could not be loaded. __PACKAGE__->mk_group_accessors('component_class' => 'result_class'); __PACKAGE__->result_class('MyClass'); $self->result_class->method(); INTERNAL METHODS These methods are documented for clarity, but are never meant to be called directly, and are not really meant for overriding either. get_super_paths Returns a list of 'parent' or 'super' class names that the current class inherited from. This is what drives the traversal done by "get_inherited". make_group_accessor __PACKAGE__->make_group_accessor('simple', 'hair_length', 'hair_length'); __PACKAGE__->make_group_accessor('simple', 'hc', 'hair_color'); Arguments: $group, $field, $accessor Returns: \&accessor_coderef ? Called by mk_group_accessors for each entry in @fieldspec. Either returns a coderef which will be installed at "&__PACKAGE__::$accessor", or returns "undef" if it elects to install the coderef on its own. make_group_ro_accessor __PACKAGE__->make_group_ro_accessor('simple', 'birthdate', 'birthdate'); __PACKAGE__->make_group_ro_accessor('simple', 'ssn', 'social_security_number'); Arguments: $group, $field, $accessor Returns: \&accessor_coderef ? Called by mk_group_ro_accessors for each entry in @fieldspec. Either returns a coderef which will be installed at "&__PACKAGE__::$accessor", or returns "undef" if it elects to install the coderef on its own. make_group_wo_accessor __PACKAGE__->make_group_wo_accessor('simple', 'lie', 'lie'); __PACKAGE__->make_group_wo_accessor('simple', 'subj', 'subject'); Arguments: $group, $field, $accessor Returns: \&accessor_coderef ? Called by mk_group_wo_accessors for each entry in @fieldspec. Either returns a coderef which will be installed at "&__PACKAGE__::$accessor", or returns "undef" if it elects to install the coderef on its own. PERFORMANCE To provide total flexibility Class::Accessor::Grouped calls methods internally while performing get/set actions, which makes it noticeably slower than similar modules. To compensate, this module will automatically use the insanely fast Class::XSAccessor to generate the "simple"-group accessors if this module is available on your system. Benchmark This is the benchmark of 200 get/get/set/get/set cycles on perl 5.16.2 with thread support, showcasing how this modules simple (CAG_S), inherited (CAG_INH) and inherited with parent-class data (CAG_INHP) accessors stack up against most popular accessor builders: Moose, Moo, Mo, Mouse (both pure-perl and XS variant), Object::Tiny::RW (OTRW), Class::Accessor (CA), Class::Accessor::Lite (CAL), Class::Accessor::Fast (CAF), Class::Accessor::Fast::XS (CAF_XS) and Class::XSAccessor (XSA) Rate CAG_INHP CAG_INH CA CAG_S CAF moOse OTRW CAL mo moUse HANDMADE moo CAF_XS moUse_XS XSA CAG_INHP 287.021+-0.02/s -- -0.3% -10.0% -37.1% -53.1% -53.6% -53.7% -54.1% -56.9% -59.0% -59.6% -59.8% -78.7% -81.9% -83.5% CAG_INH 288.025+-0.031/s 0.3% -- -9.7% -36.9% -52.9% -53.5% -53.5% -53.9% -56.7% -58.8% -59.5% -59.7% -78.6% -81.9% -83.5% CA 318.967+-0.047/s 11.1% 10.7% -- -30.1% -47.9% -48.5% -48.5% -49.0% -52.1% -54.4% -55.1% -55.3% -76.3% -79.9% -81.7% CAG_S 456.107+-0.054/s 58.9% 58.4% 43.0% -- -25.4% -26.3% -26.4% -27.0% -31.5% -34.8% -35.8% -36.1% -66.1% -71.3% -73.9% CAF 611.745+-0.099/s 113.1% 112.4% 91.8% 34.1% -- -1.2% -1.2% -2.1% -8.1% -12.6% -14.0% -14.3% -54.5% -61.5% -64.9% moOse 619.051+-0.059/s 115.7% 114.9% 94.1% 35.7% 1.2% -- -0.1% -1.0% -7.0% -11.6% -12.9% -13.3% -54.0% -61.0% -64.5% OTRW 619.475+-0.1/s 115.8% 115.1% 94.2% 35.8% 1.3% 0.1% -- -0.9% -6.9% -11.5% -12.9% -13.2% -54.0% -61.0% -64.5% CAL 625.106+-0.085/s 117.8% 117.0% 96.0% 37.1% 2.2% 1.0% 0.9% -- -6.1% -10.7% -12.1% -12.5% -53.5% -60.6% -64.2% mo 665.44+-0.12/s 131.8% 131.0% 108.6% 45.9% 8.8% 7.5% 7.4% 6.5% -- -4.9% -6.4% -6.8% -50.5% -58.1% -61.9% moUse 699.9+-0.15/s 143.9% 143.0% 119.4% 53.5% 14.4% 13.1% 13.0% 12.0% 5.2% -- -1.6% -2.0% -48.0% -55.9% -59.9% HANDMADE 710.98+-0.16/s 147.7% 146.8% 122.9% 55.9% 16.2% 14.9% 14.8% 13.7% 6.8% 1.6% -- -0.4% -47.2% -55.2% -59.2% moo 714.04+-0.13/s 148.8% 147.9% 123.9% 56.6% 16.7% 15.3% 15.3% 14.2% 7.3% 2.0% 0.4% -- -46.9% -55.0% -59.1% CAF_XS 1345.55+-0.051/s 368.8% 367.2% 321.8% 195.0% 120.0% 117.4% 117.2% 115.3% 102.2% 92.2% 89.3% 88.4% -- -15.3% -22.9% moUse_XS 1588+-0.036/s 453.3% 451.3% 397.9% 248.2% 159.6% 156.5% 156.3% 154.0% 138.6% 126.9% 123.4% 122.4% 18.0% -- -9.0% XSA 1744.67+-0.052/s 507.9% 505.7% 447.0% 282.5% 185.2% 181.8% 181.6% 179.1% 162.2% 149.3% 145.4% 144.3% 29.7% 9.9% -- Benchmarking program is available in the root of the repository : Notes on Class::XSAccessor You can force (or disable) the use of Class::XSAccessor before creating a particular "simple" accessor by either manipulating the global variable $Class::Accessor::Grouped::USE_XS to true or false (preferably with localization, or you can do so before runtime via the "CAG_USE_XS" environment variable. Since Class::XSAccessor has no knowledge of "get_simple" and "set_simple" this module does its best to detect if you are overriding one of these methods and will fall back to using the perl version of the accessor in order to maintain consistency. However be aware that if you enable use of "Class::XSAccessor" (automatically or explicitly), create an object, invoke a simple accessor on that object, and then manipulate the symbol table to install a "get/set_simple" override - you get to keep all the pieces. AUTHORS Matt S. Trout Christopher H. Laco CONTRIBUTORS Caelum: Rafael Kitover frew: Arthur Axel "fREW" Schmidt groditi: Guillermo Roditi Jason Plum ribasushi: Peter Rabbitson COPYRIGHT & LICENSE Copyright (c) 2006-2010 Matt S. Trout This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as perl itself.