NAME
Constant::Export::Lazy - Utility to write lazy exporters of constant
subroutines
SYNOPSIS
This increasingly verbose example of your "My::Constants" package that
you write using "Constant::Export::Lazy" demonstrates all our features
(from t/lib/My/Constants.pm in the source distro):
package My::Constants;
use strict;
use warnings;
use Exporter 'import';
use constant {
X => -2,
Y => -1,
};
our @EXPORT_OK = qw(X Y);
use Constant::Export::Lazy (
constants => {
# This is the simplest way to go, just define plain constant
# values.
A => sub { 1 },
B => sub { 2 },
# You get a $ctx object that you can ->call() to retrieve the
# values of other constants. This is how you can make some
# constants depend on others without worrying about
# ordering. Constants are still guaranteed to only be
# fleshened once!
SUM => sub {
my ($ctx) = @_;
$ctx->call('A') + $ctx->call('B'),
},
# For convenience you can also access other constants,
# e.g. those defined with constant.pm
SUM_INTEROP => sub {
my ($ctx) = @_;
$ctx->call('X') + $ctx->call('Y'),
},
# We won't call this and die unless someone requests it when
# they import us.
DIE => sub { die },
# These subroutines are always called in scalar context, and
# thus We'll return [3..4] here.
#
# Unlike the constant.pm that ships with perl itself we don't
# support returning lists (there's no such things as constant
# list subroutines, constant.pm fakes it with a non-inlined
# sub). So if you want to return lists you have to return a
# reference to one.
LIST => sub { wantarray ? (1..2) : [3..4] },
# We can also supply a HashRef with "call" with the sub, and
# "options" with options that clobber the global
# options. Actually when you supply just a plain sub instead
# of a HashRef we internally munge it to look like this more
# verbose (and more flexible) structure.
PI => {
call => sub { 3.14 },
options => {
override => sub {
my ($ctx, $name) = @_;
# You can simply "return;" here to say "I don't
# want to override", and "return undef;" if you
# want the constant to be undef.
return $ENV{PI} ? "Pi is = $ENV{PI}" : $ctx->call($name);
},
# This is an optional ref that'll be accessible via
# $ctx->stash in any subs relevant to this constant
# (call, override, after, ...)
stash => {
# This `typecheck_rx` is in no way supported by
# Constant::Export::Lazy, it's just something
# we're passing around to the 'after' sub below.
typecheck_rx => qr/\d+\.\d+/s, # such an epicly buggy typecheck...
},
},
},
},
options => {
# We're still exporting some legacy constants via Exporter.pm
wrap_existing_import => 1,
# A general override so you can override other constants in
# %ENV
override => sub {
my ($ctx, $name) = @_;
return unless exists $ENV{$name};
return $ENV{$name};
},
after => sub {
my ($ctx, $name, $value, $source) = @_;
if (defined(my $stash = $ctx->stash)) {
my $typecheck_rx = $stash->{typecheck_rx};
die "PANIC: The value <$value> for <$name> doesn't pass <$typecheck_rx>"
unless $value =~ $typecheck_rx;
}
print STDERR "Defined the constant <$name> with value <$value> from <$source>\n" if $ENV{DEBUG};
return;
},
},
);
1;
And this is an example of using it in some user code (from t/synopsis.t
in the source distro):
package My::User::Code;
use strict;
use warnings;
use Test::More qw(no_plan);
use lib 't/lib';
BEGIN {
# Supply a more accurate PI
$ENV{PI} = 3.14159;
# Override B
$ENV{B} = 3;
}
use My::Constants qw(
X
Y
A
B
SUM
SUM_INTEROP
PI
LIST
);
is(X, -2);
is(Y, -1);
is(A, 1);
is(B, 3);
is(SUM, 4);
is(SUM_INTEROP, -3);
is(PI, "Pi is = 3.14159");
is(join(",", @{LIST()}), '3,4');
And running it gives:
$ DEBUG=1 perl -Ilib t/synopsis.t
Defined the constant <A> with value <1> from <callback>
Defined the constant <B> with value <3> from <override>
Defined the constant <SUM> with value <4> from <callback>
Defined the constant <SUM_INTEROP> with value <-3> from <callback>
Defined the constant <PI> with value <Pi is = 3.14159> from <override>
Defined the constant <LIST> with value <ARRAY(0x16b8918)> from <callback>
ok 1
ok 2
ok 3
ok 4
ok 5
ok 6
ok 7
ok 8
1..8
DESCRIPTION
This is a utility to write lazy exporters of constant subroutines. It's
not meant to be a user-facing constant exporting API, it's something you
use to write user-facing constant exporting APIs.
There's dozens of similar constant defining modules and exporters on the
CPAN, why did I need to write this one?
It's lazy
Our constants fleshened via callbacks that are guaranteed to be called
only once for the lifetime of the process (not once per importer or
whatever), and we only call the callbacks lazily if someone actually
requests that a constant of ours be defined.
This makes it easy to have one file that runs in different environments
and generates some subset of its constants with a module that you may
not want to use, or may not be available in all your environments. You
can just "require" it in the callback that generates the constant that
requires it.
It makes it easier to manage creating constants that require other constants
Maybe you have one constant indicating whether you're running in a dev
environment, and a bunch of other constants that are defined differently
if the dev environment constant is true.
Now say you have several hundred constants like that, managing the
inter-dependencies and that everything is defined in the right order
quickly gets messy.
Constant::Import::Lazy takes away all this complexity. When you define a
constant you get a callback object that can give you the value of other
constants, and will either generate them if they haven't been generated,
or look them up in the symbol table if they have.
Thus we end up with a Makefile-like system where you can freely use
whatever other constants you like when defining your constants, just be
careful not to introduce circular dependencies.
API
Our API is exposed via a nested key-value pair list passed to "use", see
the "SYNOPSIS" for an example. Here's description of the data structure
you can pass in:
constants
This is a key-value pair list of constant names to either a subroutine
or a hash with "call" and optional options. Internally we just convert
the former type of call into the latter, i.e. "CONST =" sub {...}>
becomes "CONST =" { call => sub { ... } }>.
call
The subroutine we'll call with a context object to fleshen the constant.
It's guaranteed that this sub will only ever be called once for the
lifetime of the process, except if you manually call it multiple times
during an "override".
options (local)
Our options hash to override the global "options". The semantics are
exactly the same as for the global hash.
options
We support various options, most of these can be defined either globally
if you want to use them for all the constants, or locally to one
constant at a time with the more verbose hash invocation to "constants".
The following options are supported:
wrap_existing_import
A boolean that can only be supplied as a global option. If you provide
this the package you're importing us into has to already have a defined
"import" subroutine.
We'll clobber it with something that uses us to export all the constants
we know about (i.e. the ones passed to "constants"), but anything we
don't know about will be passed to the "import" subroutine we clobbered.
This is handy for converting existing packages that use e.g. a
combination of Exporter to export a bunch of constant constants without
having to port them all over to "Constant::Export::Lazy" at the same
time. This allows you to do so incrementally.
override
This callback can be defined either globally or locally and will be
called instead of your "call". In addition to the context object this
will also get an argument to the $name of the constant that we're
requesting an override for.
This can be used for things like overriding default values based on
entries in %ENV (see the "SYNOPSIS"), or anything else you can think of.
In an override subroutine "return $value" will return a value to be used
instead of the value we'd have retrieved from "call", doing a "return;"
on the other hand means you don't want to use the subroutine to override
this constant, and we'll stop trying to do so and just call L/<call> to
fleshen it.
You can also get the value of "call" by doing "<$ctx-"call($name)>>. We
have some magic around override ensuring that we only get the value, we
don't actually intern it in the symbol table.
This means that calling "<$ctx-"call($name)>> multiple times in the
scope of an override subroutine is the only way to get
"Constant::Export::Lazy" to call a L/<call> subroutine multiple times.
We otherwise guarantee that these subs are only called once (as
discussed in "It's lazy" and "call").
after
This callback will be called after we've just interned a new constant
into the symbol table. In addition to the context object this will also
get $name, $value and $source arguments. The $name argument is the name
of the constant we just defined, $value is its value, and $source is
either "override" or "callback" depending on how the constant was
defined. I.e. via "override" or directly via "call".
This was added to support replacing modules that in addition to just
defining constants might also want to check them for well-formedness
after they're defined, or push known constants to a hash somewhere so
they can all be retrieved by some complimentary API that e.g. spews out
"all known settings".
stash
This is a reference that you can provide for your own use, we don't care
what's in it. It'll be accessible via the context object's "stash"
method (e.g. "<my $stash = $ctx-"stash> for "call", "/override" and
"/after" calls relevant to its scope, i.e. global if you define it
globally, otherwise local if it's defined locally.
CONTEXT OBJECT
As discussed above we pass around a context object to all callbacks that
you can define. See $ctx in the "SYNOPSIS" for examples.
This objects has only two methods:
* "call"
This method will do all the work of fleshening constants via the sub
provided in the "call" option, taking the "override" callback into
account if provided, and if applicable calling the "after" callback
after the constant is defined.
If you call a subroutine you haven't defined yet (or isn't being
imported directly) we'll fleshen it if needed, making sure to only
export it to a user's namespace if explicitly requested.
See "override" for caveats with calling this inside the scope of an
override callback.
* "stash"
An accessor for the "stash" reference, will return the empty list if
there's no stash reference defined.
AUTHOR
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <
[email protected]>
