That helped a lot. The reason you are getting a wierd result is that you need to call my $thread = new Thread \&processJobs, @paramters (omit the \ before @paramters).

When you pass \@paramters to the Thread constructor processJobs gets \@paramters passed, as is, as the first parameter, not $self. $self is still there, just inside the array, to see this, add a print STDERR ... to your code, like this:

  sub processJobs {
    my $self = shift;
    print STDERR "$self is <@$self>\n"; #print $self

    print "Processing Jobs for Server Named: ", $self->{name},"\n";
  }
[download]

Best,beth

Thanks. The problem is that I wish to pass by reference. for example -

  my @paramters = $self;
  my $thread = new Thread \&processJobs, @paramters;  

  $self->{name} = "new name";

  return $self;
}

sub processJobs
{
  my $self = shift;
  
  while(1)
  {
    print "Processing Jobs for Server Name: ", $self->{name},"\n";
  }
}
[download]

Will never print "new name". How do I pass self by reference? Thanks.

"New name" never printing has nothing to do with passing by reference ($self is already reference to the object) and everything to do with how threads work. For more information on this topic by a monk with a similar problem, please see Shared variable not changing?.

Just to reinforce the point that the blessed object reference (what is stored in $self) can be used to reset the name when threading doesn't get in the way, consider this example using a closure:

{
  package Foo;
  sub new {
    my $sClass = shift;
    my $self= { name => shift };
    return bless($self, $sClass);
  }
  sub printName {
    my $self = shift;
    print $self->{name} . "\n";
  };
}

my $oFoo = Foo->new(q{George Alan O'Dowd});
my $crPrintCurrentName = sub { $oFoo->printName(); };

&$crPrintCurrentName();
$oFoo->{name} = 'Boy George';
&$crPrintCurrentName();
[download]

prints

George Alan O'Dowd
Boy George
[download]

Best, beth

Heres my code now -


#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use MyStuff::Server;

my $serverPort = '17077';

my %serverDictionary;
$serverDictionary{"barry"} = new MyStuff::Server("barry","localhost",1
+7070);    

sleep(10);

# and my package -

# Represents a video server
package MyStuff::Server;

use strict;
use warnings;

use Thread;

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

  bless $self, $class;

  my @paramters = $self;
  my $thread = new Thread \&processJobs, \@paramters;  
  print "SELF: ", $self,"\n";
  $self->{name} = "new name";

  return $self;
}

sub processJobs
{
  my $paramters = shift;
  my $self = @$paramters[0];
  print "SELF: ", $self,"\n";
  sleep(5);
  print $self->{name}, "\n";


}
[download]

this outputs -
SELF: MyStuff::Server=HASH(0x8153c28)
SELF: MyStuff::Server=HASH(0x8358760)

and then lots of barry... but never "new name". So, I'm not passing self by reference. How can I do this? Thanks!