I was looking for a way to have a Perl Object that works in the same time as a Hash, Array and Scalar object (blessed references).

To do that I have used 3 resources/modules: Symbol, overload and tie(Hash).

Update:
See Object::MultiType - Perl Objects as Hash, Array & Scalar in the same time!
Source at: http://www.inf.ufsc.br/~gmpassos/Object-MultiType-0.01.tar.gz

Here's a code to show how to implement that (without tie): 

#!/usr/bin/perl

  my $obj = Multi->new() ;

  my $string = $obj ;
  $string .= '_x' ;
  print "*** $string\n" ;
  
  my $hash_a = $obj->{A} ;
  print "$hash_a\n" ;
  
  my $array_0 = $obj->[0] ;
  print "$array_0\n" ;
  
  $obj->method(qw(z y z)) ;
  
  print "Me as scalar: $obj\n" ;

#########
# MULTI #
#########

package Multi ;

 use Symbol ;
 use overload (
 '""' => 'string' ,
 '='  => 'copy' ,
 '0+'  => 'copy' , 
 '@{}'  => 'get_array' ,
 '%{}'  => 'get_hash' ,
 'fallback' => 1 ,
 ) ;

sub new {
  my $class = shift ;

  my $this = gensym ;
  bless($this,$class) ;
  
  my $scalar = 'Foo' ;
  *$this = \$scalar ;
  *$this = [qw(a b c)] ;
  *$this = {A => 10 , B => 20 , C => 30} ;

  return( $this ) ;
}

sub method {
  my $this = shift ;
  print "METHOD>> @_\n" ;
}

sub string {
  my $this = shift ;
  return( ${*$this} ) ;
}

sub copy {
  my $this = shift ;
  return( substr(${*$this} , 0 ) ) ;
}

sub get_array {
  my $this = shift ;
  return( \@{*$this} ) ;
}

sub get_hash {
  my $this = shift ;
  return( \%{*$this} ) ;
}

1;

[download]
To use the Hash reference with tie, in the new() just make: 
  my %hash ;
  tie(%hash, 'TieHash' , $this) ;
  *$this = \%hash ;

  ## In the place of:
  ## *$this = {A => 10 , B => 20 , C => 30} ;

[download]
So now you can make: 
$obj->{key} ;
$obj->[0] ;
print "Scalar: $obj" ;

[download]
For me this works. I want to know if already exist some Perl module with that, or other way to do!

If doesn't exit a module for that yet will make one... Maybe Object::MultiType. ;-p

Graciliano M. P.
"The creativity is the expression of the liberty".

In reply to Perl Object as Hash, Array & Scalar in the same time! ( $O->{k} | $O->[0] | $O ) by gmpassos

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