Retrieving classname from an object

monkeyhelper has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have a object that I'd like to retrieve the classname for :

print Dumper $object
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gives:

$VAR1 = bless( {}, 'Some::Object' );
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I'd like to be able to retrieve 'Some::Object' as a string to operate on. I'm sure the answer must be simple but I've not been able to find a way to do it other than add a getter to the class to store the information, which isn't particularly elegant as the information is already there.

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Re: Retrieving classname from an object by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jul 10, 2006 at 23:09 UTC
Use the built-in Scalar::Util module's `blessed()` function.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Retrieving classname from an object by runrig (Abbot) on Jul 10, 2006 at 23:10 UTC
You can get it from ref() or get it more directly/accurately from Scalar::Util::blessed(). (ref, e.g., will return 'ARRAY' for an unblessed array reference or 'HASH' for an unblessed hash reference, while blessed will only return results for blessed references). Updated.	[reply]
Re^2: Retrieving classname from an object by Hue-Bond (Priest) on Jul 10, 2006 at 23:57 UTC
ref, e.g., will return 'ARRAY' for an unblessed array reference Which is amusing: `{ package ARRAY; sub new { return bless \shift; } } print join ' ', ref \@{[]}, ref ARRAY->new ("something"), "\n"; __END__ ARRAY ARRAY` [download] -- David Serrano	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Retrieving classname from an object by monkeyhelper (Initiate) on Jul 10, 2006 at 23:28 UTC
I had a look at ref and it didn't seem to provide this info - Do you have an example (out of curiosity) ? I'll use Scalar::Util for now. Thanks for the help.	[reply]
Re^3: Retrieving classname from an object by perrin (Chancellor) on Jul 10, 2006 at 23:35 UTC
`my $class = ref $object;`	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: Retrieving classname from an object by monkeyhelper (Initiate) on Nov 26, 2006 at 20:25 UTC
Re^4: Retrieving classname from an object by monkeyhelper (Initiate) on Jul 10, 2006 at 23:46 UTC
Re: Retrieving classname from an object by diotalevi (Canon) on Jul 11, 2006 at 02:34 UTC
Why are you asking for an object's class? Typically a person needs this when they're checking whether an object is of a certain kind so they can either know what it's capable of or to somehow make a decision. If that's your purpose then you've asked for the wrong piece of information. If you want to know whether an object is of a particular kind, use `$obj->isa( $your_class )`. That will respect any normal object oriented ISA relationships. If you want to know whether an object is capable of doing something you can use the `$obj->can( $method_name )` to ask whether it has a method of a particular name. You'll find these documented in the normal documentation like perlobj. `if ( ref( $obj ) eq 'Foo::Bar' ) { # This is generally wrong } use Scalar::Util 'blessed'; if ( blessed( $obj ) and $obj->can( $some_method ) ) { # We asked if the object could do something. We win. OO inheritanc +e was respected and we played by the rules. } if ( blessed( $obj ) and $obj->isa( 'Some::Object' ) ) { # This is close to your original and is slightly deprecated but al +so respects OO inheritance. }` [download] ⠤⠤ ⠙⠊⠕⠞⠁⠇⠑⠧⠊	[reply] [d/l] [select]