Hi,
This started out being a "how could I do this?"-style question. I've answered that question, and I'm now asking "should I do this?".

I'm using the AUTOLOADer to create class-accessor/mutator subroutines. The object attribute may or may not be editable by the calling code, so I create different subroutines depending on the editability. This is a bit like the get_/set_ style of functions, but I didn't fancy using those. (They annoy me).

Is there a better way of doing what I've done here? If you were the maintenance programmer coming after me, would you literally come after me?
Code that achieves the same thing:
Cheers

Update: Forgot to mention: This is similar-ish to what Damian Conway does in "Object Oriented Perl", p94.
See also: accessor/mutator with AUTOLOAD and How can I use AUTOLOAD to magically define get and set methods for my member data?

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;


my $test = Foo->new();

print $test->read_only, "\n";
$test->read_only("cheese");     # Won't do anything
print $test->read_only, "\n";

print $test->read_write, "\n";
$test->read_write("cheese");
print $test->read_write, "\n";




package Foo;

use vars '$AUTOLOAD';

sub new {
        bless {
                read_only => {
                        value    => "foo",
                        editable => 0,
                },
                read_write => {
                        value    => "bar",
                        editable => 1,
                }
        }
}; 

sub AUTOLOAD {
        no strict "refs";
        my ($self, $new_value) = @_;

        my $field_name = $AUTOLOAD;
        $field_name =~ s/.*:://;

        if(grep /^$field_name$/,keys(%$self)) {

                #Build a different autoloader depending on whether
                # the field is editable

                if($self->{$field_name}{editable}) {

                        if($new_value) {
                                $self->{$field_name}{value} = $new_val
+ue;
                        }

                        *{$AUTOLOAD} = sub {
                                if(2 == @_) {
                                        $self->{$field_name}{value} = 
+$_[1];
                                }
                                return $self->{$field_name}{value};
                        }
                } else {

                        #Really ought to make this complain if you try
+ setting a value.
                        *{$AUTOLOAD} = sub { $self->{$field_name}{valu
+e}; };
                }

                return $self->{$field_name}{value};
        } else {
                die "No such method $AUTOLOAD. Barfing\n";
        }
}

sub DESTROY { 1; }
[download]

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