I have questions regarding how to make a module behave intelligently in two particular situations. I would be appreciative of any insights that can be provided, or references that can be pointed out that would be appropriate to the subjects.

Situation 1: Suppose that there are two modules, which we will refer to as Foo::Bar and Baz::Quux. I wish to write a module (Blarg::Wibble) which may deal with an object produced by either of these two modules. I know that I could probably write something like Blarg::Wibble::Foo_Bar and Blarg::Wibble::Baz_Quux, each of which able to work on one kind of object or the other. How could I make it so that another programmer would only have to 'use Blarg::Wibble' and pass it the object (created from either Foo::Bar or Baz::Quux), and have the module be smart enough to use the appropriate functions from either Blarg::Wibble::Foo_Bar or Blarg::Wibble::Baz_Quux?

Situation 2: During the 'make test' phase of the install process, how would one go about making it so that if Baz::Quux was missing that it would skip testing for that, but would be able to work later if, in the interim, Baz::Quux had been installed?

-----
(WRT - With Respect To)

Update: Thanks to bart for letting me know that I had, while editing, left out part of the first sentence of the first paragraph. Corrected.

In reply to Question about creating intelligent behaviors in modules WRT external objects/modules by atcroft

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.