Think about what you're doing - if this makes sense, no problem. I have code like this: 

package Foo;
use strict;
use warnings;
#...

my %cache;
sub fetch {
  my $class = shift;
  my $instance = shift;
  return $cache{$instance} if $cache{$instance};

  my $self = {};
  bless ($self, $class);
  $cache{$instance} = $self;

  $self->{name} = $instance;
  # more initialisation.
  $self;
}

[download]
This allows for objects that are expensive to create (e.g., reading data from database or XML data store, etc.) to be created only once, and retrieved each time thereafter. In my scenario, the data store cannot change between the time I start my program and the end, so this is safe. If your data could change, and that could be important, then you may want to avoid caching the objects so that it gets recreated each time, which means reloading the data from the data store.

In reply to Re: Storing object references internally by Tanktalus
in thread Storing object references internally by Forsaken

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.