NAME¶

Class::MakeMethods::Utility::Ref - Deep copying and comparison

SYNOPSIS¶

  use Class::MakeMethods::Utility::Ref qw( ref_clone ref_compare );
  
  $deep_copy = ref_clone( $original );
  $positive_zero_or_negative = ref_compare( $item_a, $item_b );

DESCRIPTION¶

This module provides utility functions to copy and compare arbitrary references, including full traversal of nested data structures.

REFERENCE¶

The following functions are provided:

ref_clone()¶

Make a recursive copy of a reference.

ref_compare()¶

Attempt to recursively compare two references. If they are not the same, try to be consistent about returning a positive or negative number so that it can be used for sorting. The sort order is kinda arbitrary.

SEE ALSO¶

See Class::MakeMethods for general information about this distribution. See Ref for the original version of the clone and compare functions used above. See Clone (v0.09 on CPAN as of 2000-09-21) for a clone method with an XS implementation. The Perl6 RFP #67 proposes including clone functionality in the core. See Data::Compare (v0.01 on CPAN as of 1999-04-24) for a Compare method which checks two references for similarity, but it does not provide positive/negative values for ordering purposes.