NAME

       base - Establish an ISA relationship with base classes at compile time

SYNOPSIS

           package Baz;
           use base qw(Foo Bar);

DESCRIPTION

       Unless you are using the "fields" pragma, consider this module discouraged in favor of the
       lighter-weight "parent".

       Allows you to both load one or more modules, while setting up inheritance from those
       modules at the same time.  Roughly similar in effect to

           package Baz;
           BEGIN {
               require Foo;
               require Bar;
               push @ISA, qw(Foo Bar);
           }

       When "base" tries to "require" a module, it will not die if it cannot find the module's
       file, but will die on any other error.  After all this, should your base class be empty,
       containing no symbols, "base" will die. This is useful for inheriting from classes in the
       same file as yourself but where the filename does not match the base module name, like so:

               # in Bar.pm
               package Foo;
               sub exclaim { "I can have such a thing?!" }

               package Bar;
               use base "Foo";

       There is no Foo.pm, but because "Foo" defines a symbol (the "exclaim" subroutine), "base"
       will not die when the "require" fails to load Foo.pm.

       "base" will also initialize the fields if one of the base classes has it.  Multiple
       inheritance of fields is NOT supported, if two or more base classes each have inheritable
       fields the 'base' pragma will croak. See fields for a description of this feature.

       The base class' "import" method is not called.

DIAGNOSTICS

       Base class package "%s" is empty.
           base.pm was unable to require the base package, because it was not found in your path.

       Class 'Foo' tried to inherit from itself
           Attempting to inherit from yourself generates a warning.

               package Foo;
               use base 'Foo';

HISTORY

       This module was introduced with Perl 5.004_04.

CAVEATS

       Due to the limitations of the implementation, you must use base before you declare any of
       your own fields.

SEE ALSO

       fields