Esteemed Monks,

In using Class::DBI::mysql to get some data from a single table using the code fragment below:

sub en_display {
    # Display 'full signup or enroll' form
    my $self = shift;
    my $errs = shift;
    my $output ='';
    my $sess = $self->param('up_session');
    if ( $sess->param('_IS_USER') && $sess->param('_IS_REGISTERED') ) 
+{
        my $obj = AppSys::User->search( 'upusername' => $sess->param('
+_IS_USER'));
        while ( my $usr = $obj->next ) {
            #$output .= "Username: " . $usr->upusername . "<br><br>";
            foreach ( $usr->columns ) {
                $output .= "<b>$_</b>; $usr->{$_} <br>";
            }
            
        }
    }
    return $output;
[download]

I find I get no output printed. This is wierd! So I went back to the documentation and could find nothing. Then I recalled that when I first looked at Class::DBI I tried the code from Class::DBI Intro by trs80. Now in there I read:

# now we will make an object that relates to a single
# record.  We know that our entry is id 1 since it is
# the only record in the database so we do the following

our $user = Table::User->retrieve(1);

# $user contains our object, but since we haven't called
# any methods on the objects it has not made any calls to
# the database.

print ">> Class::DBI Results (single column)\n";
print "    Users First Name: " , $user->first_name , "\n\n";

# Now $user contains all the information related to
# the record in the database.  You can verify this with
# Data::Dumper if you want.
[download]

Which is just what I did and, yes, he is right! In my own code at the top of the page if I uncomment the line #$output .= "Username: " . $usr->upusername . "<br><br>"; I get the expected output.

Why do I need this apparently redundant method call to get the data into the object? Is there some way of ensuring that the data is loaded without the additonal call?

jdtoronto