You mean can you make your constructors prototyped so that the correct constructor gets invoked based on the number of parameters you provide, like you might do in C++?

I don't think you can do this in Perl, because Perl's version of prototypes isn't the same as C++'s. Differently-prototyped subroutines with the same name don't fly in Perl. I don't think.

My question would be: are you sure you need to do this? Perhaps there's a better way of handling this in Perl that doesn't require such a thing.

One way to do it would be to pass in the parameters as a hash, then just dump that hash into the hash-reference object that you create: 

    package R;

    sub new {
        my $this = shift;
        my $class = ref($this) || $this;

        my $self = { @_ };
        bless $self, $class;
    }

[download]
Now people can create a new R object any way they please: 
    my $r1 = new R;
    my $r2 = new R (foo => 'bar');
    my $r3 = new R (baz => 'quux', foo => 'bar');

[download]
and so on. Would that work for you?

In reply to Re: How do I make deterministic constructors? by btrott
in thread How do I make deterministic constructors? by PsychoSpunk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.