Re: Method for reducing tedium of transferring object properties to scalars

[shmem]

The easiest way is creating a subroutine which takes the object as first argument, then an array of methods, calls those methods and returns something convenient - either a list (key/value pairs, or just the values) or a reference thereof:

sub get_props {
    my $obj = shift;
    # return just a list of values
    return ( map { $obj->$_ } @_ );
    # return a list of key/value pairs
    return ( map { $_, $obj->$_ } @_ );
    # to return references, just wrap the previous examples
    # into [] or {} as appropriate
}
my @meths = map { "get_value$_" } 1..3; # or whatever your methods are
+ really
print "Values: @{[get_props($obj, @meths)]}\n"; # tweak to fit get_pro
+ps()

Of course, that only works for method calls without arguments. If your methods need arguments, you'd tweak that sub to take named arguments (i.e. it is passed a list of key/value pairs where the key is the method, and the value is a reference to whatever the method takes), or a hash reference holding that. Don't use that stub as is. There's no check for error conditions etc.

update: It really depends on what your objects are, and what you are up to. If you are the Master of the Class/Package you are using, and if your objects are just scalar references (as any well behaved object should be), you could use overload to provide a shortcut:

package Object;
use Hash::Util::FieldHash;
use overload '%{}' => \&_get_props, fallback => 1;

Hash::Util::FieldHash::fieldhash my %objects;

sub new {
    my $class = shift;
    my $self = bless do { \my($x) }, $class;
    $objects{$self} = {
        prop1 => 'foo',
        prop2 => 'bar',
        blorf => sub {time},
    };
    bless $self, $class;
}

# getters/setters...
sub get_prop1 {
    $objects{shift(@_)}->{prop1};
}
# ... and so on

sub _get_props {
    my $obj = shift;
    $objects{$obj};
    +{
        map {
            $_,
            ref $objects{$obj}->{$_} eq 'CODE'
            ? $objects{$obj}->{$_}->()
            : $objects{$obj}->{$_}
        } keys %{$objects{$obj}}
    }
}
1;
__END__

use Object;
my $foo = Object->new;
print "Values: ", join(", ", @$foo{qw(prop1 blorf)}),"\n";
__END__
Values: foo, 1492814598

Ah well... TIMTOWTDI - there are so much ways to wrap laziness into magic... ;-)