I've been trying to learn the ins and outs of mod_perl and CGI::Application lately, and I've been puzzling over something. I could use; the advise of more enlightened minds then mine.

My plan is to use AUTOLOAD to ... well autoload C::A's run_modes. I put a file in a known location (say ./lib/menu.pl) and &lazy_loader requires it. I guess this kinda goes against the principle of C::A put it seems like a good idea. The application will have dozens of run modes and I'm just to lazy to keep filling out the dispatch table. This works OK, but I can't help but to think I missing something. Is this a bad idea?

Also, mod_perl seems a little buggy, in as much as every once in a while (when I'm making changes in one of the required .pl files) it randomly fails with 'cant find Foobar.pm in @INC' but Foobar is there and @INC is correct. I restart the server and everything works. I can't reproduce it, and I don't see any pattern, but it happens fairly frequently.

Any suggestions, advise, dope slaps?

#! /usr/bin/perl -w

package Foobar;
use strict;
use base 'CGI::Application'; 

use Apache::Reload; 

sub setup {
    my $self = shift;
    $self->load_run_modes();
    $self->start_mode('menu');
    $self->run_modes("AUTOLOAD"=>\&lazy_loader);
}

# Add .pl files in ./lib for each run mode
# This silly little sub (along with lazy_loader) will find and require
+ them.
sub load_run_modes {
    my $self = shift;
    foreach (< ./lib/.*pl >) { 
        /.*lib\/(\w+).pl/;
        require $_; 
    }
}

# This is just to avoid having to add sub's to run_modes
# see load_run_modes
sub lazy_loader {
    no strict 'refs';
    &{$_[1]};
    use strict 'refs';
}
1;

[download]
Meanwhile in ./lib/menu.pl 
sub menu {
        'Ouch';
}

[download]

In reply to CGI::Application musings by Anonymous Monk

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