OO problem showing i am a newbie at OO

jcpunk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I've done a bit of OO programing in perl, but never had an error looking anything like

./thing.pl did not return a true value at ./test_prog.cgi line 4.
[download]

after googling around for a bit and consulting thepen, I post this here hopeing for hints as to whats up.
./test_prog.cgi is able to use the same require line on a different perl library ive got written with no problems, but nothing seems to be able to include ./thing.pl.

thanks for any hints you can toss my way

jcpunk

all code is tested, and doesn't work so there :p (varient on common PM sig for my own ammusment)

Comment on OO problem showing i am a newbie at OO Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: OO problem showing i am a newbie at OO by tachyon (Chancellor) on Dec 13, 2003 at 06:00 UTC
See Simple Module Tutorial. `package Thing; # code here 1; # true value at the end of the code.` [download] cheers tachyon	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: OO problem showing i am a newbie at OO by jcpunk (Friar) on Dec 13, 2003 at 06:07 UTC
thanks for the tip, it works now (minus a few syntax errors that just showed up) jcpunk all code is tested, and doesn't work so there :p (varient on common PM sig for my own ammusment)	[reply]
Re: OO problem showing i am a newbie at OO by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Dec 13, 2003 at 05:48 UTC
I can't tell whather your tried to use or require, but did you try checking whether thing.pl has a true value as its last statement? After Compline, Zaxo	[reply]
Re: Re: OO problem showing i am a newbie at OO by davido (Cardinal) on Dec 13, 2003 at 05:52 UTC
It is a very common practice (and one you'll even find demonstrated in Programming Perl, the Camel book) to put a `1;` as the last line of your module so that the module returns true. Try it and see if that clears up your problem. Update: To clarify, I just wanted to quote the relevant statement out of Advanced Perl Programming (the Panther book): When a file is require'd or use'd, it is expected to return a Boolean success value (zero for failure, nonzero for success). That is, the last executing statement at global scope must be a statement such as "return 1;" or just "1;". Note that this is not necessarily the last statement in the file; it is just the last executing statement. Dave	[reply] [d/l]
Re: OO problem showing i am a newbie at OO by ambrus (Abbot) on Dec 13, 2003 at 13:12 UTC
This error is explained correctly in `perldoc perldiag`. You should read this pod whenever you get an error message from perl core you don't understand. Most messages are described well there.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: OO problem showing i am a newbie at OO by jcpunk (Friar) on Dec 13, 2003 at 18:31 UTC
Ah ha, I will be checking that out, thanks jcpunk all code is tested, and doesn't work so there :p (varient on common PM sig for my own ammusment)	[reply]