Where? :-)

What I mean with "pass this reference" is actually "clone a reference". Again assume you have a parser and this parser is filling you a structure (basically a list). You let your parser return a reference to the structure created and you would like your Entry Object to store THAT Reference.

This seems not possible. BTW: You throw up an interesting point:

>Anyway, I wouldn't ever put \@_ into an object as changes...

How do you declare an object whose only element is a reference to a list (or hash for that matter)?

Thanks Richard

You're confusing the implentation of the object and the attributes of that object.

If you want to declare an object which is implented as a list, I'd do something like:

sub new {
    my $class = shift;
    my $self = [@_];
    bless $self, $class;
    return $self;
}

sub getList {
    my $self = shift;

    if (wantarray) {
        return @$self;
    else {
        return [@$self];
    }
}
[download]

If you wanted to have a class which had only one attribute and that attribute was a list, I'd do something like:

sub new {
    my $class = shift;

    my $self = {};
    bless $self, $class;

    $self->{LIST} = [@_];

    return $self;
}

sub getList {
    my $self = shift;

    if (wantarray) {
        return @{$self->{LIST}};
    else {
        return [@$self->{LIST}];
    }
}
[download]

Then, you would add setters as well. However, we already have something like this, in the form of tie and Tie::Array (and its cousin Tie::Hash). Check those out.

------
We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

After chatting with Fatvamp, I think what he wants is something close to this:

sub new {
    return bless [], shift;
}

sub addItems {
    my $self= shift;
    unshift @$self, @_;
}

sub setList {
    my $self= shift;
    my( $ref )= @_;
    if(  1 == @_  &&  ref($ref)  ) {
        @$self= @$ref;
    } else {
        @$self= @_;
    }
}

sub getItem {
    my $self= shift;
    my $idx= shift;
    return $self->[$idx];
}

sub getList {
    my $self= shift;
    if (wantarray) {
        return @$self;
    } else {
        return [@$self];
    }
}
[download]

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")