Provided by: libobject-tiny-perl_1.09-1_all bug

NAME

       Object::Tiny - Class building as simple as it gets

SYNOPSIS

         # Define a class
         package Foo;

         use Object::Tiny qw{ bar baz };

         1;

         # Use the class
         my $object = Foo->new( bar => 1 );

         print "bar is " . $object->bar . "\n";

DESCRIPTION

       There's a whole bunch of class builders out there. In fact, creating a class builder seems
       to be something of a rite of passage (this is my fifth, at least).

       Unfortunately, most of the time I want a class builder I'm in a hurry and sketching out
       lots of fairly simple data classes with fairly simple structure, mostly just read-only
       accessors, and that's about it.

       Often this is for code that won't end up on CPAN, so adding a small dependency doesn't
       matter much. I just want to be able to define these classes FAST.

       By which I mean LESS typing than writing them by hand, not more. And I don't need all
       those weird complex features that bloat out the code and take over the whole way I build
       modules.

       And so, I present yet another member of the Tiny family of modules, Object::Tiny.

       The goal here is really just to save me some typing. There's others that could do the job
       just fine, but I want something that does as little as possible and creates code the same
       way I'd have written it by hand anyway.

       To use Object::Tiny, just call it with a list of accessors to be created.

         use Object::Tiny 'foo', 'bar';

       For a large list, I lay it out like this...

         use Object::Tiny qw{
             item_font_face
             item_font_color
             item_font_size
             item_text_content
             item_display_time
             seperator_font_face
             seperator_font_color
             seperator_font_size
             seperator_text_content
         };

       This will create a bunch of simple accessors, and set the inheritance to be the child of
       Object::Tiny.

       Object::Tiny is empty other than a basic "new" constructor which does the following

         sub new {
             my $class = shift;
             return bless { @_ }, $class;
         }

       In fact, if doing the following in your class gets annoying...

         sub new {
             my $class = shift;
             my $self  = $class->SUPER::new( @_ );

             # Extra checking and such
             ...

             return $self;
         }

       ... then feel free to ditch the SUPER call and just create the hash yourself! It's not
       going to make a lick of different and there's nothing magic going on under the covers you
       might break.

       And that's really all there is to it. Let a million simple data classes bloom. Features?
       We don't need no stinking features.

   Handling Subclasses
       If the class you are using Object::Tiny for is already a subclass of another Object::Tiny
       class (or a subclass of anything else) it doesn't really work to make the class use
       multiple inheritance.

       So in this case, Object::Tiny will create the accessors you specify, but WON'T make it a
       subclass of Object::Tiny.

   Why bother when Class::Accessor::* already does the same thing?
       As a class builder, Object::Tiny inevitably is compared to Class::Accessor and related
       modules. They seem so similar, so why would I reimplement it?

       The answer is that for experienced developers that don't need or want hand-holding,
       Object::Tiny is just outright better, faster or cheaper on every single metric than
       Class::Accessor::Fast, which is the most comparable member of the Class::Accessor::*
       family.

       Object::Tiny is 93% smaller than Class::Accessor::Fast

       Class::Accessor::Fast requires about 125k of memory to load.

       Object::Tiny requires about 8k of memory to load.

       Object::Tiny is 75% more terse to use than Class::Accessor::Fast

       Object::Tiny is used with the least possible number of keystrokes (short of making the
       actual name Object::Tiny smaller).

       And it requires no ugly constructor methods.

       I mean really, what sort of a method name is 'mk_ro_accessors'. That sort of thing went
       out of style in the early nineties.

       Using Class::Accessor::Fast...

         package Foo::Bar;
         use base 'Class::Accessor::Fast';
         Foo::Bar->mk_ro_accessors(qw{ foo bar baz });

       Using Object::Tiny...

         package Foo::Bar;
         use Object::Tiny qw{ foo bar baz };

       Further, Object::Tiny lets you pass your params in directly, without having to wrap them
       in an additional HASH reference that will just be copied ANYWAY inside the constructor.

       Using Class::Accessor::Fast...

         my $object = Foo::Bar->new( {
             foo => 1,
             bar => 2,
             baz => 3,
         } );

       Using Object::Tiny...

         my $object = Foo::Bar->new(
             foo => 1,
             bar => 2,
             baz => 3,
         );

       Object::Tiny constructors are 110% faster than Class::Accessor::Fast

       Object::Tiny accessors are identical in speed to Class::Accessor::Fast accessors, but
       Object::Tiny constructors are TWICE as fast as Class::Accessor::Fast constructors, DESPITE
       C:A:Fast forcing you to pass by reference (which is typically done for speed reasons).

         Benchmarking constructor plus accessors...
                      Rate accessor     tiny
         accessor 100949/s       --     -45%
         tiny     182382/s      81%       --

         Benchmarking constructor alone...
                      Rate accessor     tiny
         accessor 156470/s       --     -54%
         tiny     342231/s     119%       --

         Benchmarking accessors alone...
                    Rate     tiny accessor
         tiny     81.0/s       --      -0%
         accessor 81.0/s       0%       --

       Object::Tiny pollutes your API 95% less than Class::Accessor::Fast

       Object::Tiny adds two methods to your class, "new" and "import". The "new" constructor is
       so trivial you can just ignore it and use your own if you wish, and the "import" will
       shortcut and do nothing (it is used to implement the "use Object::Tiny qw{ foo bar baz };"
       syntax itself).

       So if you make your own import, you can ignore the Object::Tiny one.

       Class::Accessor::Fast isn't quite as light, adding all sorts of useless extra public
       methods (why on earth would you want to add method accessors at run-time?).

       Here's what the classes used in the benchmark end up like.

           DB<1> use Class::Inspector

           DB<2> x Class::Inspector->methods('Foo_Bar_Tiny');
         0  ARRAY(0xfda780)
            0  'bar'
            1  'baz'
            2  'foo'
            3  'import'
            4  'new'

           DB<3> x Class::Inspector->methods('Foo_Bar_Accessor');
         0  ARRAY(0xfdb3c8)
            0  '_bar_accessor'
            1  '_baz_accessor'
            2  '_carp'
            3  '_croak'
            4  '_foo_accessor'
            5  '_mk_accessors'
            6  'accessor_name_for'
            7  'bar'
            8  'baz'
            9  'best_practice_accessor_name_for'
            10  'best_practice_mutator_name_for'
            11  'follow_best_practice'
            12  'foo'
            13  'get'
            14  'make_accessor'
            15  'make_ro_accessor'
            16  'make_wo_accessor'
            17  'mk_accessors'
            18  'mk_ro_accessors'
            19  'mk_wo_accessors'
            20  'mutator_name_for'
            21  'new'
            22  'set'

       As you can see, Object::Tiny adds 2 methods to your class, Class::Accessor adds 16
       methods, plus one extra one for every accessor.

       Object::Tiny doesn't have any of the caveats of Class::Accessor::Fast

       When you call use Object::Tiny qw{ foo bar baz } it isn't treated as some sort of
       specification for the class, it's just a list of accessors you want made for you.

       So if you want to customize "foo" you don't need to get into contortions with "pure" base
       classes or calling alternate internal methods. Just make your own "foo" method and remove
       "foo" from the list passed to the "use" call.

       Object::Tiny is more back-compatible than Class::Accessor::Fast

       Class::Accessor::Fast has a minimum Perl dependency of 5.005002.

       Object::Tiny has a minimum Perl dependency of 5.004.

       Object::Tiny has no module dependencies whatsoever

       Object::Tiny does not load ANYTHING at all outside of its own single .pm file.

       So Object::Tiny will never get confused in odd situations due to old or weird versions of
       other modules (Class::Accessor::Fast has a dependency on base.pm, which has some caveats
       of its own).

SUPPORT

       Bugs should be reported via the CPAN bug tracker at

       <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Object-Tiny>

       For other issues, contact the author.

AUTHOR

       Adam Kennedy <adamk@cpan.org>

SEE ALSO

       Config::Tiny

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright 2007 - 2011 Adam Kennedy.

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl itself.

       The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.