Re: Calling Madness

[jkahn]

I am not entirely sure what you're asking, but I'll try to paraphrase:

Is there a way I can construct a package subroutine so that, regardless of whether:

• I call it as an instance method
• I call it as a packageclass method
• I call it by its fully-qualified Pack::method name

it will do the Same Thing each time?

My answer: I think so. I'm not sure why you would want to do this, but it's the only thing I can see here.

Here's a method that would act that way (although it's not quite what you suggested). (untested):

package thisPack;
sub smartish_sub {
  my $self; # for instance reference, if called that way
  my $class; # for classname, if called that way
  if (ref $_[0]) {
     if (UNIVERSAL::isa($self,'thisPack')) {
             # ( corrected from earlier ->isa call)
       # it's an instance method invocation
       my $self = shift @_;
     }
     # else it's not an instance, but it is a ref, so 
     # it must be a fully-qualified invocation
  }
  else {
     # not a reference; ought to be class invocation
     my $class = shift;
     die "first argument to smartsub must be hashref\n"
       unless UNIVERSAL::isa($class, 'thisPack');
  }
  # now any class- or instance- invocations have been 
  # shifted off @_
  my ($hash, $string) = @_; # might want error-checking here.
  print "$hash->{foo}\n$string";
}
sub new {
  bless {}, shift;
}

YMMV.

Updated (almost immediately): used UNIVERSAL::isa() everywhere, not ->isa().

second update: clarified package vs. class language.

[Anonymous Monk]

You're on the right track :)

See - this sub can be called by any method so I need to make sure everytime it's called I either shift off the package/class info or do nothing.

My orgional code to do this (shift if ref $_[0] or $_[0] =~ /^PKG/;) doesn't work when your calling the sub by its fully-qualified "Package::method" name and $_[0] happens to be a hash ref.

So maybe this will help in understanding my problem:

shift if (ref $_[0] and $_[0]-is-the-ojbect-itself,-not-a-normal-hash-ref) or $_[0] =~ /^PKG/;