I'd have to second Sam Tregar's comments. Learn to walk before you run. It was years of coding before I began to wrap my head around objects, what they are and what I can do with them and only in the last year or so that I've tried to write my own.

I just had a lousy experience with CGI::Application where in order to get our project back on track I wound up ripping out CGI::Application and coding my own ->new(), ->run() and ->cgiapp_init() methods so the rest of the code I had built around CGI::App would work. I lost a day writing those three methods. But I had already lost two trying to work through the errors with CGI::App.

The CGI::App crowd would probably moan were they to see this code, but it works, was delivered in reasonably good time and bypassed some persistent errors I encountered with the CGI::App framework.

My ->run() method uses old fashioned conditionals to determine dispatch. This was written is such a way that if I was ever able to work through the errors with CGI::App, I could swap it in in place of the three methods I wrote.

Perhaps this would be helpful.

-- Hugh

sub run {
  my $self = shift;
  my $rm_arg = shift; # || 'RegForm';
  # my $reg_id = shift;
  my ($cfg,$dbh) = $self->cgiapp_init();
  my $session = new CGI::Session() or die CGI::Session->errstr;
  my $reg_id = $session->param("reg_id");
  my ($output,$method);
  my $q = new CGI;
  my $rm = $q->param('rm') || $rm_arg;
  ###l4p my $logger = Log::Log4perl->get_logger('RegForm.run');
  ###l4p $logger->debug(Dumper(\$self,\$q));
  ###l4p $logger->info("\$reg_id is $reg_id and \$rm is $rm.");

  ((defined ($q->param('_submitted_RegistrantForm'))) || ($rm eq '')) 
+|| die
     "  DISPAIR \$q->param('_submitted_Registrant Form') is undef \n";

  if(defined($q->param('_submitted_RegistrantForm')) && $q->param('_su
+bmit') eq "Proceed_to_Meals_and_Housing"){
    $rm = "RegistrantNeeds";
  } elsif( (defined($q->param('_submitted_RegistrantNeeds'))) && $q->p
+aram('_submit') eq "Proceed_to_Checkout"){
    $rm = "RegistrantNeeds";
  } elsif( (defined($q->param('_submitted_Checkout'))) && $q->param('_
+submit') eq "Recalculate_Invoice"){
    $rm = "Checkout";
  } elsif( (defined($q->param('_submitted_Checkout'))) && $q->param('_
+submit') eq "Proceed_to_Payment"){
    $rm = "Checkout";
    ###l4p $logger->info("\$reg_id is $reg_id and \$rm is $rm and we'r
+e dispatching to ->payment() run mode.");
  }

  my %run_modes = (
    'RegForm' => 'registrant_form',
    'RegistrantNeeds' => 'registrant_needs',
    'Checkout' => 'checkout',
    'Payment' => 'payment',
    'Thankyou' => 'thank_you',
    'Admin' => 'admin_screen',
  );
  print STDERR "->run() method defined %run_modes.\n";

  {
    no strict 'refs';
    $method = $run_modes{$rm};
  }

  (defined($reg_id )) && print STDERR "  near the end of run(), \$reg_
+id is $reg_id\n";
  (defined($reg_id )) || print STDERR "  near the end of run(), \$reg_
+id is undefined\n";
  if ($method eq '') {
    print STDERR "  oh NO!  undefining \$reg_id !\n";
    $method = 'registrant_form';
    undef($reg_id);
  }
  (defined($method )) || die " OUCH \$method is undefined in ->run()\n
+";

  (defined($reg_id) || $method eq 'registrant_form') ||
    die("\$reg_id is undefined, but a registrantID is
    required for runmode: ->$method().  This usually means
    that an additional tab or window has been opened to this
    application.  Please close all but your newest   
    invocation of this page and try again.\n");

  # print STDERR "->run() method about to pass control to $rm.\n";
  ###lp4 $logger->info("->run() method about to pass control to $rm.")
+;
  ($output,$reg_id) = $self->$method($cfg,$reg_id);
  ###l4p $logger->info("->run() method passed control to $rm which has
+ returned its output for \$reg_id # $reg_id.");
  # print STDERR "->run() method passed control to $rm which has retur
+ned its output for \$reg_id # $reg_id.\n";

  $session->param('reg_id',$reg_id);

  print $session->header();
  print $output;
  print STDERR "->run() method ready to return.\n";
  ###l4p $logger->info("->run() method ready to return processing for 
+$reg_id.");
  return;
}
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