In my quest for more Perl wisdom, I've come across the following tidbit. (Ignoring the lack of strict and -w in some code, this is the stripped down version).

package bar;

# base class. Has a description method and an id method

sub new {
 my $proto = shift;
 my $class = ref($proto) || $proto;
 my $self = {};
 $self->{DESCRIPTION} = "Bar!!!";
 bless($self,$class);
 return $self;
}

sub description 
{ my $self = shift;
  return $self->{DESCRIPTION};
}
# return a description

sub id { return __PACKAGE__; }

# return the package name

package foo;

# inheriting from bar package, not overriding the id method.

@ISA = qw(bar);

use bar;

sub new {
 my $proto = shift;
 my $class = ref($proto) || $proto;
 my $self = $class->SUPER::new;
 $self->{DESCRIPTION} = "Foo!!";
 # yes I'm lazy :)
 bless($self,$class);
 return $self;
}

package main;

use foo;

$foo = new foo;
print "Description is ",$foo->description,"\n";
print "Package is ",$foo->id,"\n";
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So I have 2 packages, foo inherits from bar. In the bar package, I have a method using __PACKAGE__ to get the package name. I instanciate a foo object and call 2 available methods. Description returns the foo description, the id method returns the package name from bar.

Should I override id in the foo package too in order to getting __PACKAGE__ right?

Greetz
Beatnik
... Quidquid perl dictum sit, altum viditur.