There are a number of modules for converting hashes to blessed hashrefs with accessors for the elements within, f.e. Data::AsObject and Hash::AutoHash. In this code I imagined you'd be using an %employees hash rather than an array, and keyed it on some imaginary employee id. I then subclassed Data::AsObject::Hash to add a new method to take a reference to the employees hash and create the accessors (through the dao function) automatically.

I was able to add custom methods to my EmployeeData class which can work on $self as either a subclass of Data::AsObject::Hash or as a hashref (or hash, through dereferencing) and you can continue to use the %employees hash as before.

If you wished to use an array, then dao would need to be given a hashref with one key and a reference to the array as the value, e.g. dao { data => \@employees }.

Of course, you could just as easily have created a completely new class, which just blessed \@employees (or \%employees) into $class and just used it as a means to add methods.

If you keep both %employees and $employees in the same scope it would provide a (really ugly) way of keeping the original array|hash and its blessed reference and using, f.e., both push @employees, { name => 'Foo Bar' }; and $employees->method_call; in the same code, though hopefully at some point you'd switch over to just the object/reference.

I don't this is some 'problem' which requires the use of slow modules like autobox or some wholesale re-invention of Perl symbology. Just some reasonable amount of pre-planning and willingness to make reasonable, incremental changes in existing code.

use strict;
use warnings;
{
    package EmployeeData;
    use Data::AsObject;
    use base 'Data::AsObject::Hash';    
    sub new {
        my $class = shift;
        my ($data) = @_;
        my $obj    = Data::AsObject::dao ( $data );
        bless $obj, $class;
    }
    sub foo {
        my $self = shift;
        my ($eidx) = @_;
        print STDERR $self->{$eidx}{age} . "\n";
    }
}


my %employees = (
  JS0114 =>
    { name      => 'Joe Soap',
      age       => 56,
    },
  JS1282 =>
    { name      => 'Joan Smith',
      age       => 28,
    },
);

my $employees = EmployeeData->new(\%employees);
bless $employees, 'EmployeeData';
print $employees{JS0114}{age} . "\n";
$employees->foo('JS1282');
print $employees->JS0114->age . "\n";

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In reply to Re: Benefits of everything is an object? Or new sigils? by james2vegas
in thread Benefits of everything is an object? Or new sigils? by LanX

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