NAME

       Exporter::Easy - Takes the drudgery out of Exporting symbols

SYNOPSIS

       In module YourModule.pm:

         package YourModule;
         use Exporter::Easy (
           OK => [ '$munge', 'frobnicate' ] # symbols to export on request
         );

       In other files which wish to use YourModule:

         use ModuleName qw(frobnicate);      # import listed symbols
         frobnicate ($left, $right)          # calls YourModule::frobnicate

DESCRIPTION

       Exporter::Easy makes using Exporter easy. In it's simplest case it allows you to drop the
       boilerplate code that comes with using Exporter, so

         require Exporter;
         use base qw( Exporter );
         use vars qw( @EXPORT );
         @EXPORT = ( 'init' );

       becomes

         use Exporter::Easy ( EXPORT => [ 'init' ] );

       and more complicated situations where you use tags to build lists and more tags become
       easy, like this

         use Exporter::Easy (
               EXPORT => [qw( init :base )],
               TAGS => [
                       base => [qw( open close )],
                       read => [qw( read sysread readline )],
                       write => [qw( print write writeline )],
                       misc => [qw( select flush )],
                       all => [qw( :base :read :write :misc)],
                       no_misc => [qw( :all !:misc )],
               ],
               OK => [qw( some other stuff )],
         );

       This will set @EXPORT, @EXPORT_OK, @EXPORT_FAIL and %EXPORT_TAGS in the current package,
       add Exporter to that package's @ISA and do a "use vars" on all the variables mentioned.
       The rest is handled as normal by Exporter.

HOW TO USE IT

       Put

               use Exporter::Easy ( KEY => value, ...);

       in your package. Arguments are passes as key-value pairs, the following keys are available

       TAGS
           The value should be a reference to a list that goes like (TAG_NAME, TAG_VALUE,
           TAG_NAME, TAG_VALUE, ...), where TAG_NAME is a string and TAG_VALUE is a reference to
           an array of symbols and tags. For example

             TAGS => [
               file => [ 'open', 'close', 'read', 'write'],
               string => [ 'length', 'substr', 'chomp' ],
               hash => [ 'keys', 'values', 'each' ],
               all => [ ':file', ':string', ':hash' ],
               some => [':all', '!open', ':hash'],
             ]

           This is used to fill the %EXPORT_TAGS in your package. You can build tags from other
           tags - in the example above the tag "all" will contain all the symbols from "file",
           "string" and "hash". You can also subtract symbols and tags - in the example above,
           "some" contains the symbols from all but with "open" removed and all the symbols from
           "hash" removed.

           The rule is that any symbol starting with a ':' is taken to be a tag which has been
           defined previously (if it's not defined you'll get an error). If a symbol is preceded
           by a '!' it will be subtracted from the list, otherwise it is added.

           If you try to redefine a tag you will also get an error.

           All the symbols which occur while building the tags are automatically added your
           package's @EXPORT_OK array.

       OK  The value should be a reference to a list of symbols and tags (which will be
           exapanded). These symbols will be added to the @EXPORT_OK array in your package. Using
           OK and and OK_ONLY together will give an error.

       OK_ONLY
           The value should be a reference to a list of symbols and tags (which will be
           exapanded). The @EXPORT_OK array in your package will contains only these symbols..
           This totally overrides the automatic population of this array. If you just want to add
           some symbols to the list that Exporter::Easy has automatically built then you should
           use OK instead. Using OK_ONLY and OK together will give an error.

       EXPORT
           The value should be a reference to a list of symbol names and tags. Any tags will be
           expanded and the resulting list of symbol names will be placed in the @EXPORT array in
           your package. The tag created by the ALL key is not available at this stage.

       FAIL
           The value should be a reference to a list of symbol names and tags. The tags will be
           expanded and the resulting list of symbol names will be placed in the @EXPORT_FAIL
           array in your package. They will also be added to the @EXPORT_OK list.

       ALL The value should be the name of tag that doesn't yet exist. This tag will contain a
           list of all symbols which can be exported.

       ISA If you set this to 0 then Exporter will not be added to your @ISA list.

       VARS
           If this is set to 1 or not provided then all $, @ and % variables mentioned previously
           will be available to use in your package as if you had done a "use vars" on them. If
           it's set to a reference to a list of symbols and tags then only those symbols will be
           available. If it's set to 0 then you'll have to do your own "use vars" in your
           package.

PROCESSING ORDER

       We need take the information provided and build @EXPORT, @EXPORT_OK, @EXPORT_FAIL and
       %EXPORT_TAGS in the calling package. We may also need to build a tag with all of the
       symbols and to make all the variables useable under strict.

       The arguments are processed in the following order: TAGS, EXPORT, OK, OK_ONLY and FAIL,
       ALL, VARS and finally ISA. This means you cannot use the tag created by ALL anywhere
       except in VARS (although vars defaults to using all symbols anyway).

SEE ALSO

       For details on what all these arrays and hashes actually do, see the Exporter
       documentation.

AUTHOR

       Written by Fergal Daly <fergal@esatclear.ie>.

LICENSE

       Under the same license as Perl itself