Re: Why breaking can() is acceptable

[hardburn]

I'd prefer that people stop using AUTOLOAD when they don't need to. Specifically:

sub AUTOLOAD 
{
    my $self = shift;
    $self->{$AUTOLOAD} = shift if @_;
    $self->{$AUTOLOAD};
}

The actual code could be more complex, such as checking $AUTOLOAD against a list of allowed attributes, but the idea of runtime handling of accessors/mutators is the same. If you must have autogenerated accessors/mutators, please use symbol table manipulation instead if at all possible:

# Could be wrapped in a BEGIN block if you wanted to
foreach my $field (qw/ foo bar baz /) {
    *$field = sub {
        my $self = shift;
        $self->{$field} = shift if @_;
        $self->{$field};
    };
}

This is faster, is as memory-efficient as things get around Perl, and (IIRC) doesn't break can. Overall, it's even better to avoid spreading accessors/mutators all over your class design in the first place, but that's a seperate issue.

I understand the above isn't the only use of AUTOLOAD, but it's by far the most common. So if you're doing that, please stop and look for alternatives. Or better, fix your class design.

[tilly]

And that is exactly what I was referring to with my comments on "typeglobbing closures instead of AUTOLOAD".

I also usually don't wrap it in a BEGIN block. In the context of a module, there is no real reason to wrap it in a BEGIN block, because the module itself is wrapped in an implicit BEGIN block. Otherwise I prefer to not try to specify BEGIN ordering unless absolutely needed, instead specify ordering of events as simple as I can arrange. (But that was an old discussion with tye.)

[dragonchild]

Ok. I agree with you, for that instance. However, how do you handle syntactic-sugar methods that are instance-specific?

[hardburn]

how do you handle syntactic-sugar methods that are instance-specific?

That is something that probably comes down to a case-by-case basis, so I don't want to give any hard rules on it. What I do want is to stop people from using AUTOLOAD to handle accessors/mutators when other solutions are available. This seems to be the most common use of AUTOLOAD, and it needs to stop. (Please direct flames twards tchrist :)

[dragonchild]

What about soft rules? :-)