This package provides Class::IntrospectionMethods. A module to create method with introspection feature. In other words, this module provides:

• A way to set up a lot of get/set method. These get/set methods can access plain scalars, array, hash. These scalar, hash or array can be tied (See perltie) with classes specified by the user. The element of these arrays or hashes can be constrained to be object, tied scalar.
• A way to later query the object or class to retrieve the list of methods (aka slots) created by this module.
• A way to organize these slots in several catalogs.
• A way to backtrack from contained object to container object: When a slot contains object or tied scalars hashes or arrays, the contained object can be queried for the container object. In other words, the parent object (the one constructed by Class::IntrospectionMethods contains a child object in one of its slots either as a plain object or an object hidden behind a tied construct. Class::IntrospectionMethods will provide the child object a method to retrieve the parent object reference.

This module was forked from a modified version of Class::MethodMaker v1.08. To ease migration from older project using Class::MethodMaker to Class::IntrospectionMethods, a compatiblity mode is provided (although some features of Class::MethodMaker will not work. See Class::IntrospectionMethods::Legacy man page).

THANKS

To Martyn J. Pearce for Class::MethodMaker and the enlightening discussion we had a while ago about parent and catalog.

To Matthew Simon Cavalletto for the parameter translation idea that I pilfered from Class::MakeMethods.

Legal mumbo jumbo:

Copyright (c) 2004 Dominique Dumont. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

Copyright (c) 2002, 2001, 2000 Martyn J. Pearce. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000 Evolution Online Systems, Inc. You may use this software for free under the terms of the MIT License. More info posted at http://www.evolution.com, or contact info@evolution.com

Copyright (c) 1996 Organic Online. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

         gunzip -c <dist_file>.tar.gz | tar xvf -
         cd <dist_directory>
         perl Makefile.PL
         make test          
         make install