NAME

       Module::Pluggable - automatically give your module the ability to have plugins

SYNOPSIS

       Simple use Module::Pluggable -

           package MyClass;
           use Module::Pluggable;

       and then later ...

           use MyClass;
           my $mc = MyClass->new();
           # returns the names of all plugins installed under MyClass::Plugin::*
           my @plugins = $mc->plugins();

EXAMPLE

       Why would you want to do this? Say you have something that wants to pass an object to a
       number of different plugins in turn. For example you may want to extract meta-data from
       every email you get sent and do something with it. Plugins make sense here because then
       you can keep adding new meta data parsers and all the logic and docs for each one will be
       self contained and new handlers are easy to add without changing the core code. For that,
       you might do something like ...

           package Email::Examiner;

           use strict;
           use Email::Simple;
           use Module::Pluggable require => 1;

           sub handle_email {
               my $self  = shift;
               my $email = shift;

               foreach my $plugin ($self->plugins) {
                   $plugin->examine($email);
               }

               return 1;
           }

       .. and all the plugins will get a chance in turn to look at it.

       This can be trivally extended so that plugins could save the email somewhere and then no
       other plugin should try and do that.  Simply have it so that the "examine" method returns
       1 if it has saved the email somewhere. You might also wnat to be paranoid and check to see
       if the plugin has an "examine" method.

               foreach my $plugin ($self->plugins) {
                   next unless $plugin->can('examine');
                   last if     $plugin->examine($email);
               }

       And so on. The sky's the limit.

DESCRIPTION

       Provides a simple but, hopefully, extensible way of having 'plugins' for your module.
       Obviously this isn't going to be the be all and end all of solutions but it works for me.

       Essentially all it does is export a method into your namespace that looks through a search
       path for .pm files and turn those into class names.

       Optionally it instantiates those classes for you.

ADVANCED USAGE

       Alternatively, if you don't want to use 'plugins' as the method ...

           package MyClass;
           use Module::Pluggable sub_name => 'foo';

       and then later ...

           my @plugins = $mc->foo();

       Or if you want to look in another namespace

           package MyClass;
           use Module::Pluggable search_path => ['Acme::MyClass::Plugin', 'MyClass::Extend'];

       or directory

           use Module::Pluggable search_dirs => ['mylibs/Foo'];

       Or if you want to instantiate each plugin rather than just return the name

           package MyClass;
           use Module::Pluggable instantiate => 'new';

       and then

           # whatever is passed to 'plugins' will be passed
           # to 'new' for each plugin
           my @plugins = $mc->plugins(@options);

       alternatively you can just require the module without instantiating it

           package MyClass;
           use Module::Pluggable require => 1;

       since requiring automatically searches inner packages, which may not be desirable, you can
       turn this off

           package MyClass;
           use Module::Pluggable require => 1, inner => 0;

       You can limit the plugins loaded using the except option, either as a string, array ref or
       regex

           package MyClass;
           use Module::Pluggable except => 'MyClass::Plugin::Foo';

       or

           package MyClass;
           use Module::Pluggable except => ['MyClass::Plugin::Foo', 'MyClass::Plugin::Bar'];

       or

           package MyClass;
           use Module::Pluggable except => qr/^MyClass::Plugin::(Foo|Bar)$/;

       and similarly for only which will only load plugins which match.

       Remember you can use the module more than once

           package MyClass;
           use Module::Pluggable search_path => 'MyClass::Filters' sub_name => 'filters';
           use Module::Pluggable search_path => 'MyClass::Plugins' sub_name => 'plugins';

       and then later ...

           my @filters = $self->filters;
           my @plugins = $self->plugins;

PLUGIN SEARCHING

       Every time you call 'plugins' the whole search path is walked again. This allows for
       dynamically loading plugins even at run time. However this can get expensive and so if you
       don't expect to want to add new plugins at run time you could do

         package Foo;
         use strict;
         use Module::Pluggable sub_name => '_plugins';

         our @PLUGINS;
         sub plugins { @PLUGINS ||= shift->_plugins }
         1;

INNER PACKAGES

       If you have, for example, a file lib/Something/Plugin/Foo.pm that contains package
       definitions for both "Something::Plugin::Foo" and "Something::Plugin::Bar" then as long as
       you either have either the require or instantiate option set then we'll also find
       "Something::Plugin::Bar". Nifty!

OPTIONS

       You can pass a hash of options when importing this module.

       The options can be ...

   sub_name
       The name of the subroutine to create in your namespace.

       By default this is 'plugins'

   search_path
       An array ref of namespaces to look in.

   search_dirs
       An array ref of directorys to look in before @INC.

   instantiate
       Call this method on the class. In general this will probably be 'new' but it can be
       whatever you want. Whatever arguments are passed to 'plugins' will be passed to the
       method.

       The default is 'undef' i.e just return the class name.

   require
       Just require the class, don't instantiate (overrides 'instantiate');

   inner
       If set to 0 will not search inner packages.  If set to 1 will override "require".

   only
       Takes a string, array ref or regex describing the names of the only plugins to return.
       Whilst this may seem perverse ... well, it is. But it also makes sense. Trust me.

   except
       Similar to "only" it takes a description of plugins to exclude from returning. This is
       slightly less perverse.

   package
       This is for use by extension modules which build on "Module::Pluggable": passing a
       "package" option allows you to place the plugin method in a different package other than
       your own.

   file_regex
       By default "Module::Pluggable" only looks for .pm files.

       By supplying a new "file_regex" then you can change this behaviour e.g

           file_regex => qr/\.plugin$/

   include_editor_junk
       By default "Module::Pluggable" ignores files that look like they were left behind by
       editors. Currently this means files ending in ~ (~), the extensions .swp or .swo, or files
       beginning with .#.

       Setting "include_editor_junk" changes "Module::Pluggable" so it does not ignore any files
       it finds.

   follow_symlinks
       Whether, when searching directories, to follow symlinks.

       Defaults to 1 i.e do follow symlinks.

   min_depth, max_depth
       This will allow you to set what 'depth' of plugin will be allowed.

       So, for example, "MyClass::Plugin::Foo" will have a depth of 3 and
       "MyClass::Plugin::Foo::Bar" will have a depth of 4 so to only get the former (i.e
       "MyClass::Plugin::Foo") do

               package MyClass;
               use Module::Pluggable max_depth => 3;

       and to only get the latter (i.e "MyClass::Plugin::Foo::Bar")

               package MyClass;
               use Module::Pluggable min_depth => 4;

TRIGGERS

       Various triggers can also be passed in to the options.

       If any of these triggers return 0 then the plugin will not be returned.

   before_require <plugin>
       Gets passed the plugin name.

       If 0 is returned then this plugin will not be required either.

   on_require_error <plugin> <err>
       Gets called when there's an error on requiring the plugin.

       Gets passed the plugin name and the error.

       The default on_require_error handler is to "carp" the error and return 0.

   on_instantiate_error <plugin> <err>
       Gets called when there's an error on instantiating the plugin.

       Gets passed the plugin name and the error.

       The default on_instantiate_error handler is to "carp" the error and return 0.

   after_require <plugin>
       Gets passed the plugin name.

       If 0 is returned then this plugin will be required but not returned as a plugin.

METHODs

   search_path
       The method "search_path" is exported into you namespace as well.  You can call that at any
       time to change or replace the search_path.

           $self->search_path( add => "New::Path" ); # add
           $self->search_path( new => "New::Path" ); # replace

BEHAVIOUR UNDER TEST ENVIRONMENT

       In order to make testing reliable we exclude anything not from blib if blib.pm is in %INC.

       However if the module being tested used another module that itself used
       "Module::Pluggable" then the second module would fail. This was fixed by checking to see
       if the caller had (^|/)blib/ in their filename.

       There's an argument that this is the wrong behaviour and that modules should explicitly
       trigger this behaviour but that particular code has been around for 7 years now and I'm
       reluctant to change the default behaviour.

       You can now (as of version 4.1) force Module::Pluggable to look outside blib in a test
       environment by doing either

               require Module::Pluggable;
               $Module::Pluggable::FORCE_SEARCH_ALL_PATHS = 1;
               import Module::Pluggable;

       or

               use Module::Pluggable force_search_all_paths => 1;

FUTURE PLANS

       This does everything I need and I can't really think of any other features I want to add.
       Famous last words of course

       Recently tried fixed to find inner packages and to make it 'just work' with PAR but there
       are still some issues.

       However suggestions (and patches) are welcome.

DEVELOPMENT

       The master repo for this module is at

       https://github.com/simonwistow/Module-Pluggable

AUTHOR

       Simon Wistow <simon@thegestalt.org>

COPYING

       Copyright, 2006 Simon Wistow

       Distributed under the same terms as Perl itself.

BUGS

       None known.

SEE ALSO

       File::Spec, File::Find, File::Basename, Class::Factory::Util, Module::Pluggable::Ordered