Hello fellow monks,

Following up my own question in SOPW, I would like to release a module implementing the following concept.

TL;DR

use Text::Quote::Self qw(quote_text);

my $safe = quote_text($user_input); # create a magic string object
$safe = Text::Quote::Self->new($user_input); # ditto
say $safe; # input as is
say $safe->as_uri; # uri-encoded
$safe =~ s/foo/bar/; # changes original, permanently
my $data = { text => $safe };

# elsewhere in the app

say JSON::XS->new->allow_blessed->convert_blessed->encode($data);
    #text as is

local $Text::Quote::Self::Style = "as_html";
say $data->{text}; # now with entities

# or in a Template 
You were searching for 
<a href="/search?q=[% search_term.as_uri %]">[% search_term %]</a>.
[download]

The concept

Say we have an application that produces convoluted data structure which can be presented in multi[ple ways (who said MVC?). Now depending on the presentation, some strings may need to be escaped/quoted, e.g. if we form an HTML document, we'll have to use HTML entities for some characters; but if we send it via JSON, no quoting is needed.

To encode such strings properly, we have to either know what presentation is to be used and pre-encode the strings in the data layer, or know which strings are safe and which aren't in the presentation layer. This breaks encapsulation of presentation and data, respectively.

Now my proposed solution is to create an object with overloaded stringify operation and a set of quoting methods. The preferred method is then chosen based on a package variable. This allows to localize choice to a scope, e.g. set to HTML during template processing subroutine.

The questions

• is Text::Quote::Self a descriptive enough name? Is Text the right namespace?
• is quote_text a descriptive enough name? How likely it is to infringe on a user's sub name?
• I noticed that in my own project where this concept first appeared quote_text and decode_utf8 often come together. Would it be a good idea to add a switch to auto-encode non-utf strings during construction?
• local $Foo::Bar looks oldish. Maybe an alternative based on guard objects should be used? Exporting the magic variable didn't work for me.

Whatever is done so far is available on github.

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