Perl Module Inheritance

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

does perl support inheritance?

for example, i have a container class

mat::User

which basically just contains a set of attributes(first,last)/getters and setters

and i have another class

mat::Session

which does authentication with a XML based api. i want to create a

mat::Session::User

that has functions that are added to the 'mat::User' that can only be accessed if you have a valid Session.

a sample use case would be

my $x=mat::User->new{first=>'foo', last=>'bar'};
mat::Session::User->create($x);

where the 'create' method uses the XML api to create a user 'foo bar' using the already authenticated mat::Session... mat::Session::User would need to inherit mat::Session as well as mat::User.

Comment on Perl Module Inheritance

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Re: Perl Module Inheritance by blue_cowdawg (Monsignor) on Aug 29, 2007 at 17:59 UTC
does perl support inheritance? Sort of. Take a look at perltoot and seek out the explaintion of what `package myModule; use vars qw/ @ISA /; @ISA = qw/ otherModule /; # This is also an "otherModule"` [download] sort of thing does for you. There are limitations and you need to be sure to understand those limitations to minimize your frustrations. You can also do things like: `package Foo; use base qw/ Bar Baz / ; \|` [download] which is taken from the base man page. This also is a good read before proceeding further. Peter L. Berghold -- Unix Professional Peter -at- Berghold -dot- Net; AOL IM redcowdawg Yahoo IM: blue_cowdawg	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Perl Module Inheritance by Joost (Canon) on Aug 29, 2007 at 19:27 UTC
`my $x=mat::User->new{first=>'foo', last=>'bar'}; mat::Session::User->create($x);` [download] Is all fine enough, but why would mat::Session::User need to inherit from mat::Session? I note that to get at the mat::Session from within mat::Session::User::create() you either need to make the mat::Session object available globally (i.e. using some sort of singleton class/function) or you'd need to pass in the session explicitly. Either way, there isn't any need to have mat::Session::User inherit from mat::Session, and it will probably be clearer not to inherit from the session at all. "What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"	[reply] [d/l]