Hello,

I have a class called 'Datum' that implements the tied scalar interface. This class's constructor returns a tied scalar ref at present. This means that in my code, the returned scalar object must be dereferenced as '$$scalar'.

The $$ dereferencing is the problem.

I would like to write a method, module, C extension, or whatever it takes to have the class's new method return an object that may be used exactly as if it were a scalar, but this new magic variable also accepts method invocation and and supports running my code on STORE FETCH etc. I guess this might even be considered a new variable type, based on scalar.

I know that I can tie the scalar to my Datum class all over my code, but that's very tedious as there are hundreds of them in my programs

eg. 

use Datum;

my $d = Datum->new(-type => date);

$d = "Nov 25, 1971";

print STDOUT "\$d contains $d"; # "Nov 25, 1971"

print STDOUT "\$d as unixtime:", $d->to_unixtime, "\n";

exit 0;

[download]

Is this possible in perl5? Would I have to write an XS module instead?

Thanks!

rr

In reply to How might I return tied scalar that does not have to be dereferenced as $$scalar? by rr

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