[Petal] [PATCH] Options via constructor rather than package globals

[Jean-Michel Hiver]

> 1. a base class for all Petal objects, ie: Petal::Object, or
>    Petal::Base.  To begin with, this would contain new() and
>    _initialize(), which are easily overrided.

I'm not sure if I agree with the concept of 'base classes'. I mean,
there is one, called UNIVERSAL. It has a few methods like can() and
isa() but it features no constructors.

Until there is a popular CPAN 'base class' that does anything you'd want
in a base class (constructors, initialization, popular methods...) then
I'd prefer to stick with implementing a constructor each time.

Maybe Petal objects should inherit from Class::Base?


> 2. cascade-able accessor methods which let you do:
> 
> 	$template
> 	  ->language('fr')
> 	  ->input('HTML')
> 	  ->output('XHTML');


Now I find this really, really useless :)

I disagree with the idea of constructing an object that is in an
inconsistent state and setting the state afterwards through some strange
syntaxic sugar.

I suppose it doesn't cost much to implement... since you don't have to
use it if you don't want it, it's probably a good idea despite the fact
that I don't like it :)


> 3. use accessors within _initialize().  In the off-chance that
>    someone comes along and sub-classes Petal :)
> 
> Additionally, you might get rid of a lot of cut-n-paste work in 
> _initialize() by doing something like:
> 
> 	...
> 	foreach my $param (qw( taint disk_cache ... )) {
>         no strict 'refs';
> 		my $val = exists $o{$param}
> 		  ? $o{param}
> 		  : ${'Petal::' . uc(param)
> 		$self->$param( $val );
> 	}

That's probably a good idea.


> Again, good work.  Lets hope Jean-Michel agrees ;-)

I applied the patch, looked at it, and then tweaked a little bit things
the way I wanted...

Having the options at an object level did really involve quite a lot of
changes. So instead of making the rest of Petal code aware of per-object
options, I changed the process() method to declare the global options
variables as local and set them to the per-objects options.

It might seem like a bit of a hack but I think it's acceptable and it
fits in better with the way Petal was designed to start with. Also, the
patch seemed to fail one test...

Anyway since I haven't released Petal in a while I'll to a .93 release
that should sort out the most urgent stuff (including the
Petal::Hash::VAR bug you pointed out). Meanwhile more deep changes to
Petal will have to wait...

Cheers,
-- 
Building a better web - http://www.mkdoc.com/
---------------------------------------------
Jean-Michel Hiver
jhiver at mkdoc.com  - +44 (0)114 255 8097
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