NAME

       Acme::Damn - 'Unbless' Perl objects.

SYNOPSIS

         use Acme::Damn;

         my $ref = ... some reference ...
         my $obj = bless $ref , 'Some::Class';

         ... do something with your object ...

            $ref = damn $obj;   # recover the original reference (unblessed)

         ... neither $ref nor $obj are Some::Class objects ...

DESCRIPTION

       Acme::Damn provides a single routine, damn(), which takes a blessed reference (a Perl
       object), and unblesses it, to return the original reference.

   EXPORT
       By default, Acme::Damn exports the method damn() into the current namespace. Aliases for
       damn() (see below) may be imported upon request.

   Methods
       damn object
           damn() accepts a single blessed reference as its argument, and returns that reference
           unblessed. If object is not a blessed reference, then damn() will "die" with an error.

       bless reference
       bless reference [ , package ]
       bless reference [ , undef ]
           Optionally, Acme::Damn will modify the behaviour of "bless" to allow the passing of an
           explicit "undef" as the target package to invoke damn():

               use Acme::Damn  qw( bless );

               my  $obj = ... some blessed reference ...;

               # the following statements are equivalent
               my  $ref = bless $obj , undef;
               my  $ref = damn $obj;

           NOTE: The modification of "bless" is lexically scoped to the current package, and is
           not global.

   Method Aliases
       Not everyone likes to damn the same way or in the same language, so Acme::Damn offers the
       ability to specify any alias on import, provided that alias is a valid Perl subroutine
       name (i.e. all characters match "\w").

         use Acme::Damn qw( unbless );
         use Acme::Damn qw( foo );
         use Acme::Damn qw( unblessthyself );
         use Acme::Damn qw( recant );

       Version 0.02 supported a defined list of aliases, and this has been replaced in v0.03 by
       the ability to import any alias for "damn()".

WARNING

       Just as "bless" doesn't call an object's initialisation code, "damn" doesn't invoke an
       object's "DESTROY" method. For objects that need to be "DESTROY"ed, either don't "damn"
       them, or call "DESTROY" before judgement is passed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       Thanks to Claes Jacobsson <claes@surfar.nu> for suggesting the use of aliases, and Bo
       Lindbergh <blgl@cpan.org> for the suggested modification of "bless".

SEE ALSO

       bless, perlboot, perltoot, perltooc, perlbot, perlobj.

AUTHOR

       Ian Brayshaw, <ian@onemore.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       Copyright 2003-2012 Ian Brayshaw

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