When to bless a Perl variable

For 2023 (and 2024 ...) - we are now fully retired from IT training.
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I am also active in many other area and still look after a lot of web sites - you can find an index ((here))

Perl's bless function, which turns a reference into an instance of an object, it typically called up as the last action in a constructor method. On today's Perl for Larger Projects course, I was challenged as to when else it might be used. Here's an example - when loading a file of information into objects, in a method that's returning a whole list of objects:



sub fileload {

        my ($class,$fname) = @_;

        open (FH,$fname);

        my @result;

        while (<FH>) {

                my ($thisclass,$breed,$age,$equiv) = split;

                my %self;

                $self{breed} = $breed;

                $self{age} = $age;

                $self{equiv} = $equiv;

                push @result, bless \%self,$thisclass;

                }

        return @result;

        }

Interesting, this code's also an example of the two parameter use of bless, where an object is being blessed into a class that's not got the same name as the current package.
(written 2005-03-15, updated 2006-06-05)

Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles

P218 - Perl - More Objects
  [227] Bellringing and Programming and Objects and Perl - (2005-02-25)
  [531] Packages in packages in Perl - (2005-12-16)
  [588] Changing @INC - where Perl loads its modules - (2006-02-02)
  [592] NOT Gone phishing - (2006-02-05)
  [656] Think about your design even if you don't use full UML - (2006-03-24)
  [831] Comparison of Object Oriented Philosophy - Python, Java, C++, Perl - (2006-08-13)
  [930] -> , >= and => in Perl - (2006-11-18)
  [1217] What are factory and singleton classes? - (2007-06-04)
  [1320] Perl for Larger Projects - Object Oriented Perl - (2007-08-25)
  [1435] Object Oriented Programming in Perl - Course - (2007-11-18)
  [1664] Example of OO in Perl - (2008-06-03)
  [1665] Factory method example - Perl - (2008-06-04)
  [1819] Calling base class constructors - (2008-10-03)
  [1949] Nuclear Physics comes to our web site - (2008-12-17)
  [2427] Operator overloading - redefining addition and other Perl tricks - (2009-09-27)
  [2651] Calculation within objects - early, last minute, or cached? - (2010-02-26)
  [2717] The Multiple Inheritance Conundrum, interfaces and mixins - (2010-04-11)
  [2811] Igloos melt in the summer, but houses do not - (2010-06-15)
  [2876] Different perl examples - some corners I rarely explore - (2010-07-18)
  [2972] Some more advanced Perl examples from a recent course - (2010-09-27)
  [3097] Making Perl class definitions more conventional and shorter - (2010-12-20)
  [3098] Learning Object Orientation in Perl through bananas and perhaps Moose - (2010-12-21)
  [3377] What do I mean when I add things in Perl? - (2011-08-02)
  [3581] Perl - calls to methods that use => - what do they mean? - (2012-01-16)
  [3941] Building an object based on another object in Perl - (2012-12-03)
  [4096] Perl design patterns example - (2013-05-20)
  [4098] Using object orientation for non-physical objects - (2013-05-22)
  [4356] Object factories in C++, Python, PHP and Perl - (2014-12-19)
  [4366] Changing what operators do on objects - a comparison across different programming languages - (2014-12-26)

P213 - Perl - Creating your own Classes
  [975] Answering ALL the delegate's Perl questions - (2006-12-09)
  [983] Blessing in Perl / Member variable in Ruby - (2006-12-14)
  [1864] Object Oriented Perl - First Steps - (2008-11-01)
  [1925] Introduction to Object Oriented Programming - (2008-12-06)
  [2169] When should I use OO techniques? - (2009-05-11)
  [2834] Teaching examples in Perl - third and final part - (2010-06-27)
  [2877] Further more advanced Perl examples - (2010-07-19)
  [2969] What does blessing a variable in Perl mean? - (2010-09-24)
  [3059] Object Orientation in an hour and other Perl Lectures - (2010-11-18)
  [3833] Learning to use existing classes in Perl - (2012-08-10)
  [4607] Classes and object - first steps in Perl 6 - (2016-01-02)

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