Re: Is it legal to create subs in a module?

Methods are stored at the class level, not at the object level. In Perl terms, when you create a method you are installing a subroutine in the symbol table for your package. Removing an object doesn't do anything to the package's symbol table.

A better way to do this is using AUTOLOAD like this:

sub AUTOLOAD {
  my ($pkg, $attr) = $AUTOLOAD =~ /(.*)::(.*)/;

  *{$attr} = sub { return $_[0]->{$attr} };

  return $_[0]->{$attr};
}
[download]

Although that still doesn't solve your main problem.

--
<http://www.dave.org.uk>

"The first rule of Perl club is you don't talk about Perl club."

Comment on Re: Is it legal to create subs in a module? Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Is it legal to create subs in a module? by runrig (Abbot) on Oct 11, 2001 at 20:00 UTC
Doesn't both your's and lestrrat's answer(s) need to ignore the DESTROY method? Like: `return if $AUTOLOAD =~ /::DESTROY$/;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Re: Is it legal to create subs in a module? by davorg (Chancellor) on Oct 11, 2001 at 20:17 UTC
Good point. I'd probably get round that by defining a dummy `DESTROY` method that does nothing. -- <http://www.dave.org.uk> "The first rule of Perl club is you don't talk about Perl club."	[reply]
Re: Re: Is it legal to create subs in a module? by Fletch (Bishop) on Oct 11, 2001 at 20:27 UTC
Of course you could be evil and use a blessed coderef as your representation. That coderef could dispatch methods differently for each instance (the instance information being kept in a lexical visible when the closure is created). But you probably can only get away with that if you're Damian (c.f. Object Oriented Perl, Chapter 11, p297-300).	[reply]