SYNOPSIS

package Foo;
use Class::ObjectTemplate;
require Exporter;
@ISA = qw(Class::ObjectTemplate Exporter);
attributes('one', 'two', 'three');
# initialize will be called by new()
sub initialize {
my $self = shift;
$self->three(1) unless defined $self->three();
}
use Foo;
$foo = Foo->new();
# store 27 in the 'one' attribute
$foo->one(27);
# check the value in the 'two' attribute
die "should be undefined" if defined $foo->two();
# set using the utility method
$foo->set_attribute('one',27);
# check using the utility method
$two = $foo->get_attribute('two');
# set more than one attribute using the named parameter style
$foo->set_attributes('one'=>27, 'two'=>42);
# or using array references
$foo->set_attributes(['one','two'],[27,42]);
# get more than one attribute
@list = $foo->get_attributes('one', 'two');
# get a list of all attributes known by an object
@attrs = $foo->get_attribute_names();
# check that initialize() is called properly
die "initialize didn't set three()" unless $foo->three();

DESCRIPTION

Class::ObjectTemplate is a utility class to assist in the building of other Object Oriented Perl classes.

It was described in detail in the O\'Reilly book, ``Advanced Perl Programming'' by Sriram Srinivasam.

EXPORT

attributes(@name_list)

This method creates a shared setter and getter methods for every name in the list. The method also creates the class constructor, "new()".

WARNING: This method must be invoked within the module for every class that inherits from Class::ObjectTemplate, even if that class defines no attributes. For a class defining no new attributes, it should invoke "attributes()" with no arguments.

AUTHOR

Original code by Sriram Srinivasam.

Fixes and CPAN module by Jason E. Stewart ([email protected])