Hello, I'd like some advice on good perl style. I wrote a module for CGI error handling that I like the functionality of, but I think the interface needs some refinement.

The issue is this: The module needs to have some intelligent defaults, but these can be overridden by a module that calls it. For a given module that calls my error module (let's say Err.pm), it has it's own defaults, which can in turn be overridden a per-script basis.

Right now I have a routine in MyModule.pm which basically collects the values from the calling script, adds in defaults for abstent variables and returns Err::err.pm

It seems like there should be a slicker way than writing this wrapper routine to call the module though. Perhaps there is an answer somewhere in OO I can use?

I'll create some sample peusdo-code here in case someone wants to rework it for an example. 

package Err.pm

sub err {
    my %args = (
        title =>'Really Bad Error',
        msg => undef,
       @_ 
   );
   # do something with %args here.
}

###########
package MyModule.pm;
use Err.pm;

sub err {
  my %args = (
        title =>'My new default title for MyModule.pm',
        msg => 'MyModules generic error message',
       @_ 
   );
   return Err::err(%args);
}

##################
### my script.cgi

package MyModule;

do_the_right_thing() || err(title=>'Oops',msg=>'something went wrong')
+;

[download]

I hope that made sense. Thanks for any suggestions.

-mark

In reply to Handling cascading defaults by markjugg

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