Provided by: libuser-identity-perl_1.02-1_all bug

NAME

       User::Identity - maintain info about a physical person

INHERITANCE

        User::Identity
          is a User::Identity::Item

SYNOPSIS

        use User::Identity;
        my $me = User::Identity->new
         ( 'john'
         , firstname => 'John'
         , surname   => 'Doe'
         );
        print $me->fullName  # prints "John Doe"
        print $me;           # same

DESCRIPTION

       The "User-Identity" distribution is created to maintain a set of informational objects
       which are related to one user.  The "User::Identity" module tries to be smart providing
       defaults, conversions and often required combinations.

       The identities are not implementing any kind of storage, and can therefore be created by
       any simple or complex Perl program.  This way, it is more flexible than an XML file to
       store the data.  For instance, you can decide to store the data with Data::Dumper,
       Storable, DBI, AddressBook or whatever.  Extension to simplify this task are still to be
       developed.

       If you need more kinds of user information, then please contact the module author.

       Extends "DESCRIPTION" in User::Identity::Item.

OVERLOADED

       $obj->stringification()
           When an "User::Identity" is used as string, it is automatically translated into the
           fullName() of the user involved.

           example:

            my $me = User::Identity->new(...)
            print $me;          # same as  print $me->fullName
            print "I am $me\n"; # also stringification

METHODS

       Extends "METHODS" in User::Identity::Item.

   Constructors
       Extends "Constructors" in User::Identity::Item.

       User::Identity->new( [$name], %options )
           Create a new user identity, which will contain all data related to a single physical
           human being.  Most user data can only be specified at object construction, because
           they should never change.  A $name may be specified as first argument, but also as
           option, one way or the other is required.

            -Option     --Defined in          --Default
             birth                              undef
             charset                            $ENV{LC_CTYPE}
             courtesy                           undef
             description  User::Identity::Item  undef
             firstname                          undef
             formal_name                        undef
             full_name                          undef
             gender                             undef
             initials                           undef
             language                           'en'
             name         User::Identity::Item  <required>
             nickname                           undef
             parent       User::Identity::Item  undef
             prefix                             undef
             surname                            undef
             titles                             undef

           birth => DATE
           charset => STRING
           courtesy => STRING
           description => STRING
           firstname => STRING
           formal_name => STRING
           full_name => STRING
           gender => STRING
           initials => STRING
           language => STRING
           name => STRING
           nickname => STRING
           parent => OBJECT
           prefix => STRING
           surname => STRING
           titles => STRING

   Attributes
       Extends "Attributes" in User::Identity::Item.

       $obj->age()
           Calcuted from the datge of birth to the current moment, as integer.  On the birthday,
           the number is incremented already.

       $obj->birth()
           Returns the date in standardized format: YYYYMMDD, easy to sort and select.  This may
           return "undef", even if the dateOfBirth() contains a value, simply because the format
           is not understood. Month or day may contain '00' to indicate that those values are not
           known.

       $obj->charset()
           The user's preferred character set, which defaults to the value of LC_CTYPE
           environment variable.

       $obj->courtesy()
           The courtesy is used to address people in a very formal way.  Values are like "Mr.",
           "Mrs.", "Sir", "Frau", "Heer", "de heer", "mevrouw".  This often provides a way to
           find the gender of someone addressed.

       $obj->dateOfBirth()
           Returns the date of birth, as specified during instantiation.

       $obj->description()
           Inherited, see "Attributes" in User::Identity::Item

       $obj->firstname()
           Returns the first name of the user.  If it is not defined explicitly, it is derived
           from the nickname, and than capitalized if needed.

       $obj->formalName()
           Returns a formal name for the user.  If not defined as instantiation parameter (see
           new()), it is constructed from other available information, which may result in an
           incorrect or an incomplete name.  The result is built from "courtesy initials prefix
           surname title".

       $obj->fullName()
           If this is not specified as value during object construction, it is guessed based on
           other known values like "firstname prefix surname".  If a surname is provided without
           firstname, the nickname is taken as firstname.  When a firstname is provided without
           surname, the nickname is taken as surname.  If both are not provided, then the
           nickname is used as fullname.

       $obj->gender()
           Returns the specified gender of the person, as specified during instantiation, which
           could be like 'Male', 'm', 'homme', 'man'.  There is no smart behavior on this: the
           exact specified value is returned. Methods isMale(), isFemale(), and courtesy() are
           smart.

       $obj->initials()
           The initials, which may be derived from the first letters of the firstname.

       $obj->isFemale()
           See isMale(): return true if we are sure the user is a woman.

       $obj->isMale()
           Returns true if we are sure that the user is male.  This is specified as gender at
           instantiation, or derived from the courtesy value.  Methods isMale and isFemale are
           not complementatory: they can both return false for the same user, in which case the
           gender is undertermined.

       $obj->language()
           Can contain a list or a single language name, as defined by the RFC Examples are 'en',
           'en-GB', 'nl-BE'.  The default language  is 'en' (English).

       $obj->name( [$newname] )
           Inherited, see "Attributes" in User::Identity::Item

       $obj->nickname()
           Returns the user's nickname, which could be used as username, e-mail alias, or such.
           When no nickname was explicitly specified, the name is used.

       $obj->prefix()
           The words which are between the firstname (or initials) and the surname.

       $obj->surname()
           Returns the surname of person, or "undef" if that is not known.

       $obj->titles()
           The titles, degrees in education or of other kind.  If these are complex, you may need
           to specify the formal name of the users as well, because smart formatting probably
           failes.

   Collections
       Extends "Collections" in User::Identity::Item.

       $obj->add($collection, $role)
           Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

       $obj->addCollection( $object | <[$type], %options> )
           Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

       $obj->collection($name)
           Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

       $obj->parent( [$parent] )
           Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

       $obj->removeCollection($object|$name)
           Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

       $obj->type()
       User::Identity->type()
           Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

       $obj->user()
           Inherited, see "Collections" in User::Identity::Item

   Searching
       Extends "Searching" in User::Identity::Item.

       $obj->find($collection, $role)
           Inherited, see "Searching" in User::Identity::Item

DIAGNOSTICS

       Error: $object is not a collection.
           The first argument is an object, but not of a class which extends
           User::Identity::Collection.

       Error: Cannot load collection module for $type ($class).
           Either the specified $type does not exist, or that module named $class returns
           compilation errors.  If the type as specified in the warning is not the name of a
           package, you specified a nickname which was not defined.  Maybe you forgot the
           'require' the package which defines the nickname.

       Error: Creation of a collection via $class failed.
           The $class did compile, but it was not possible to create an object of that class
           using the options you specified.

       Error: Don't know what type of collection you want to add.
           If you add a collection, it must either by a collection object or a list of options
           which can be used to create a collection object.  In the latter case, the type of
           collection must be specified.

       Warning: No collection $name
           The collection with $name does not exist and can not be created.

SEE ALSO

       This module is part of User-Identity distribution version 1.02, built on April 17, 2023.
       Website: http://perl.overmeer.net/CPAN/

LICENSE

       Copyrights 2003-2023 by [Mark Overmeer <markov@cpan.org>]. For other contributors see
       ChangeLog.

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl itself.  See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/