NAME¶
SWISS::BaseClass
DESCRIPTION¶
This class is designed to impliment many of the properties that you expect in
inheritance. All the housekeeping functions are defined in this module. See
the notes on use for a description of how to make use of it.
Functions¶
- new
- Returns a new SWISS::BaseClass object.
- rebless
- Converts a base class into your class! Call as
$self->rebless($class) where $self is a base class object. It returns
$self, reblessed, with the correct member variables.
- initialize
- Override this in each derived class to provide class
specific initialization. For example, initialize may put arrays into
member variables that need them. You must provide an initialize
function.
- reformat
- Some line objects are implementing "lazy
writing". This means that on writing an entry, they are only
reformatted if they have been modified. The method reformat forces an
object to be reformatted even if its content has not been modified. This
may be useful e.g. to make sure the current formatting rules are
applied.
- setEvidenceTags @array
- Sets the evidence tags of the object to the list passed in
@array.
- addEvidenceTag string
- Adds the evidence tag to the object.
- deleteEvidenceTag string
- Deletes the evidence tag from the object.
- hasEvidenceTag string
- returns true if the object has the evidence tag.
- getEvidenceTags
- returns the array of evidence tags of the object
- Check4Clashes
- This function checks your classes member variable list for
clashes with any class that it inherits from (any class that
can(_containsFields) returns true on!). If it detects that in any base
class that any data members have been already defined, it dies with a
listing of the variables already used.
It stops searching a root of an inheritance hierachy when it can find no
baseclasses that support _containsFields. It will find all clashes in an
entire inheritance tree.
So in the inheritance hierachy of
SWISS::BaseClass -> A -> B -\
> E
SWISS::BaseClass -> C -> D -/
where E is the most derived class, if E contains names that clash with A
members and names that clash with B members, both the A and B member
clashes will be reported.
If there were clashes with B and C, say, then again, all of the clashes
would be reported.
- _containsFields
- This function is responsible for comparing a classes fields
with the set in the calling package. This implimentation will work for
cases where all of the classes that contribute fields are derived from
SWISS::BaseClass. You may wish to make your own class fit this interface,
so what follows is an interface API.
_containsFields assumes that the first argument is the package that it is
being called in. The following arguments are taken to be a list of fields
which to check are not found in members of the current package.
It should return either "undef" or a reference to an array of name
clashes in the format "package::variable". It should call it's
self for each parental class that supports this function.
So it would look something like
_containsFields {
my $class = shift;
my @toCheck = @_;
foreach @toCheck {
check that they are not in me. If they are, add them to the list of clashes to return.
}
add all base class clashes to your list of clashes
if there were name clashes return a reference to them
otherwise return undef
}
- equal
- If two objects are equal, it returns true.
Warning: This funktion compares two objects using a simple dump in Perl
format, see Data::Dumper module. The comparison also takes private
variables into account. Therefore: If the method 'equal' returns true, the
objects are guaranteed to be equal, but it might return false although the
two objects are equal in they public attributes.
- copy
- Returns a "deep copy" of the object.
A skeletal derived class¶
package myDerived;
use vars qw ( @ISA %fields );
BEGIN {
@ISA = ('SWISS::BaseClass');
%fields = (
'i' => 1,
'hash' => undef
);
myDerived->check4Clashes();
}
sub new {
print "myDerived::new(@_)\n";
my $class = shift;
my $self = new SWISS::BaseClass;
$self->rebless ($class);
return $self;
}
sub initialize {
my $self = shift;
$self->{'hash'} = {};
}
A class derived from myDerived would just substitute the name myDerived for
SWISS::BaseClass. Hey presto - all sorted!