NAME

       Class::ObjectTemplate - Perl extension for an optimized template builder base class.

SYNOPSIS

         package Foo;
         use Class::ObjectTemplate;
         require Exporter;
         @ISA = qw(Class::ObjectTemplate Exporter);

         attributes('one', 'two', 'three');

         # initialize will be called by new()
         sub initialize {
           my $self = shift;
           $self->three(1) unless defined $self->three();
         }

         use Foo;
         $foo = Foo->new();

         # store 27 in the 'one' attribute
         $foo->one(27);

         # check the value in the 'two' attribute
         die "should be undefined" if defined $foo->two();

         # set using the utility method
         $foo->set_attribute('one',27);

         # check using the utility method
         $two = $foo->get_attribute('two');

         # set more than one attribute using the named parameter style
         $foo->set_attributes('one'=>27, 'two'=>42);

         # or using array references
         $foo->set_attributes(['one','two'],[27,42]);

         # get more than one attribute
         @list = $foo->get_attributes('one', 'two');

         # get a list of all attributes known by an object
         @attrs = $foo->get_attribute_names();

         # check that initialize() is called properly
         die "initialize didn't set three()" unless $foo->three();

DESCRIPTION

       Class::ObjectTemplate is a utility class to assist in the building of other Object
       Oriented Perl classes.

       It was described in detail in the O\'Reilly book, "Advanced Perl Programming" by Sriram
       Srinivasam.

   EXPORT
       attributes(@name_list)

       This method creates a shared setter and getter methods for every name in the list. The
       method also creates the class constructor, "new()".

       WARNING: This method must be invoked within the module for every class that inherits from
       Class::ObjectTemplate, even if that class defines no attributes. For a class defining no
       new attributes, it should invoke "attributes()" with no arguments.

AUTHOR

       Original code by Sriram Srinivasam.

       Fixes and CPAN module by Jason E. Stewart (jason@openinformatics.com)

SEE ALSO

       http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/advperl/

       perl(1).

       Class::ObjectTemplate::DB