KinoSearch::Object::Obj - Base class for all KinoSearch objects.

    package MyObj;
    use base qw( KinoSearch::Object::Obj );

    # Inside-out member var.
    my %foo;

    sub new {
        my ( $class, %args ) = @_;
        my $foo = delete $args{foo};
        my $self = $class->SUPER::new(%args);
        $foo{$$self} = $foo;
        return $self;
    }

    sub get_foo {
        my $self = shift;
        return $foo{$$self};
    }

    sub DESTROY {
        my $self = shift;
        delete $foo{$$self};
        $self->SUPER::DESTROY;
    }

All objects in the KinoSearch:: hierarchy descend from KinoSearch::Object::Obj. All classes are implemented as blessed scalar references, with the scalar storing a pointer to a C struct.

The recommended way to subclass KinoSearch::Object::Obj and its descendants is to use the inside-out design pattern. (See Class::InsideOut for an introduction to inside-out techniques.)

Since the blessed scalar stores a C pointer value which is unique per-object, $$self can be used as an inside-out ID.

    # Accessor for 'foo' member variable.
    sub get_foo {
        my $self = shift;
        return $foo{$$self};
    }

Caveats:

• Inside-out aficionados will have noted that the "cached scalar id" stratagem recommended above isn't compatible with ithreads -- but KinoSearch doesn't support ithreads anyway, so it doesn't matter.
• Overridden methods must not return undef unless the API specifies that returning undef is permissible. (Failure to adhere to this rule currently results in a segfault rather than an exception.)

Abstract constructor -- must be invoked via a subclass. Attempting to instantiate objects of class "KinoSearch::Object::Obj" directly causes an error.

Takes no arguments; if any are supplied, an error will be reported.

All KinoSearch classes implement a DESTROY method; if you override it in a subclass, you must call $self->SUPER::DESTROY to avoid leaking memory.

Convert the object to a 64-bit integer.

Convert the object to a double precision floating point number.

Create an object from the output of a call to dump(). Implementations must not reference the caller.

• dump - The output of dump().

Generic stringification: "ClassName@hex_mem_address".

Indicate whether two objects are the same. By default, compares the memory address.

• other - Another Obj.

Return a representation of the object using only scalars, hashes, and arrays. Some implementations support JSON serialization via dump() and its companion method, load(); for others, dump() is only a debugging aid. The default simply calls to_string().

Copyright 2005-2011 Marvin Humphrey

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