I just noticed that if a base class returns an instance of it's child from a method, then you can write this dumb code:

print $o->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->
+bar->bar->baz;
[download]

My questions are:

1. Is there a technical term for this thing (other than "method chaining" of course!)?
2. Is it possible to detect it? (caller does not seem to give any info for this)

Full code:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

package BaseClass;
use strict;

sub new {
   my $class = shift;
   my $self  = {};
   bless $self, $class;
   $self;
}

sub bar {
   return Foo->new;
}

package Foo;
use strict;
use base qw(BaseClass);

sub baz {"Some data"}

package main;
use strict;

my $o = Foo->new;

print $o->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->bar->
+bar->bar->baz;
[download]

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