Objected Oriented Perl

1
Objected Oriented Perl

• An introduction because I dont have the time
  or patience for an in-depth OOP lecture series

2
Classes in Perl

• A class is defined by storing code which defines
  it in a separate file, and then useing that file
• The file must be named with the name of the class
  (starting with an capital letter), followed by
  the extension .pm
• After the shebang in your main file, this line
  of code
• use ltClassnamegt
• You can then create instances of the class
  anywhere in your file.

3
Defining an Object

• In Perl, an object is simply a reference
  containing the members of a class.
• typically, a reference to a hash, but can be any
  kind of reference
• The reference becomes an object when it is
  blessed when you tell Perl the reference
  belongs to a certain class.

4
Simple Example

• package Student
• obj Name gt Paul,
• ID gt 123
• bless (obj, Student)
• obj is now an object of the class Student
• package Student is the first line of your .pm
  file. It identifies all following code as
  belonging to this class/package/module

5
Constructors

• Unlike C, a Constructor in Perl is simply
  another subroutine. Typically named new, but
  you can give it any name you want.
• package Student
• sub new
• my ref Name gt , ID gt 0
• bless (ref, Student)
• return ref
• In this example, dont actually have to give ref
  any elements. You can define them all in a later
  subroutine, if you choose.

6
Calling the Constructor

• As you may be able to guess, TMTOWTDI
• student new Student
• student Student-gtnew
• student Studentnew(Student)
• First two methods get translated to 3rd method
  internally by perl. This has beneficial
  consequences

7
Arguments to Constructor

• (actually, this applies to arguments to any
  method)
• Every time the constructor is called, first
  argument to function is the name of the class.
• Remaining arguments are caller-defined
• obj new Student (Paul, 123)
• obj Student-gtnew(Paul, 123)
• obj Studentnew(Student, Paul, 123)
• So, when defining constructor, often see this
• sub new
• my class shift
• my (name, ID) _at__
• my ref Name gt name,ID gt ID
• bless (ref, class)
• return ref

8
More Methods

• Within the .pm file, any subroutines you declare
  become methods of that class.
• For all methods, first argument is always the
  object that the method is being called on. This
  is also beneficial
• sub setName
• my ref shift
• my name shift
• ref-gtName name
• To call this method
• obj-gtsetName(Paul Lalli)
• Perl translates this to
• StudentsetName(obj, Paul Lalli)

9
One more thing

• In one of the oddest things Ive learned about
  Perl, you need to place the following statement
  at the end of your .pm file
• 1
• This is because the use keyword needs to take
  something that returns a true value. Perl
  returns the last statement evaluated.

10
?? Be Kind to One Another??

• Note that class variables are not strictly
  private in the C sense.
• There is nothing preventing the user of your
  class from modifying the data members directly,
  bypassing your interface functions.
• Perls general philosophy is If someone wants to
  shoot himself in the foot, who are you to stop
  him?
• When using other peoples classes, almost always
  a better idea to use the functions theyve given
  you, and pretend you cant get at the internal
  data.
• There are, of course, methods you can use to
  prevent users from doing this.
• Really not worth the trouble
• Significantly beyond scope of this course

11
Standard Modules

• Perl distributions come with a significant number
  of pre-installed modules that you can use in your
  own programs.
• These files are found in system-specified
  directories.
• To find where the files are located on your
  system, examine the _at_INC array
• print _at_INC\n
• Gives a listing of all directories that are
  looked at when Perl finds a use statement.

12
Standard Module Example

• Well look at a pre-defined class that implements
  Complex-number support in Perl.
• This module is defined in a subdirectory of the
  include path, called Math.
• use MathComplex
• The constructor for this class is called make
• z MathComplex-gtmake(4,3)
• Creates an instance of the class Complex.
• z can be thought to hold the value 4 3i

13
More MathComplex

• Complex.pm is also good enough to overload the
  basic mathematical operators to work with members
  of the complex class
• Overloading operators is beyond the scope of this
  lecture read the Camel chapter 13 for more info
• It also defines a constant i sqrt(-1)
• use MathComplex
• z MathComplex-gtmake(3,5)
• print z\n
• z z 4
• print z\n
• z z 3i
• print z\n

Prints 3 5i 7 5i 7 2i
14
Privacy? Bah

• If you examine the Complex.pm file, youll see
  that the internal structure of the class is (at
  least partially) represented by an array
  reference called cartesian. Perl will let you
  modify this directly
• z MathComplex-gtmake (3,5)
• z-gtcartesian0 40
• Dont do that. Instead, use the functions
  provided by the class Re() and Im()
• z-gtRe(40) set real part of z to 40
• img z-gtIm() get img. part of z

15
Help on Standard Modules

• For documentation for all these classes, you have
  several resources
• Camel, chapter 32
• Unix program perldoc
• ex, perldoc MathComplex
• CPAN http//www.cpan.org