=head1 NAME
Package::Butcher - When you absolutely B<have> to load that damned package.
=head1 ALPHA CODE
You've been warned. It also has an embarrassingly poor test suite. It was
hacked together in an emergency while sitting in a hospital waiting for my
daughter to be born. Sue me.
=head1 VERSION
Version 0.01
=cut
=head1 SYNOPSIS
my $butcher = Package::Butcher->new(
{
package => 'Dummy',
do_not_load => [qw/Cannot::Load Cannot::Load2 NoSuch::List::MoreUtils/],
predeclare => 'uniq',
subs => {
this => sub { 7 },
that => sub { 3 },
existing => sub { 'replaced existing' },
},
method_chains => [
[
'Cannot::Load' => qw/foo bar baz this that/ => sub {
my $args = join ', ' => @_;
return "end chain: $args";
},
],
],
}
);
$butcher->use(@optional_import_list);
=head1 DESCRIPTION
Sometimes you need to load a module which won't otherwise load. Unit testing
is a good reason. Unfortunately, some modules are just very, very difficult to
load. This module is a nasty hack with a name designed to make this clear.
It's here to provide a standard set of tools to let you load these problem
modules.
=head1 USAGE
To use this module, let's consider the following awful module:
package Dummy;
use strict;
use Cannot::Load;
use NoSuch::List::MoreUtils 'uniq';
use DBI;
use base 'Exporter';
our @EXPORT_OK = qw(existing);
sub existing { 'should never see this' }
# this strange construct forces a syntax error
sub filter {
uniq map {lc} split /\W+/, shift;
}
sub employees {
my @connect =
( 'dbi:Pg:dbname=ourdb', '', '', { AutoCommit => 0 } );
return DBI->connect(@connect)
->selectall_arrayref(
'SELECT id, name, position FROM employees ORDER BY id');
}
sub recipes {
my @connect = ( 'dbi:Pg:dbname=ourdb', '', '', { AutoCommit => 0 } );
return DBI->connect(@connect)
->selectall_arrayref('SELECT id, name FROM recipes');
}
1;
You probably cannot load this. You don't have C<Cannot::Load> or
C<NoSuch::List::MoreUtils> available. What's worse, even if you try to stub
them out and fake this, the C<employees> and C<recipes> methods might be
frustrating. We'll use this as an example of how to use C<Package::Butcher>.
=head1 METHODS
=head2 C<new>
The constructor for C<Package::Butcher> takes a hashref with several allowed
keys. For example, the following will allow the C<Dummy> package above to
load:
my $dummy = Package::Butcher->new({
package => 'Dummy',
do_not_load =>
[qw/Cannot::Load NoSuch::List::MoreUtils DBI/],
predeclare => 'uniq',
subs => {
existing => sub { 'replaced existing' },
reverse_string => sub {
my $arg = shift;
return scalar reverse $arg;
},
},
method_chains => [
[
'Cannot::Load' => qw/foo bar baz this that/ => sub {
my $args = join ', ' => @_;
return "end chain: $args";
},
],
[
'DBI' => qw/connect selectall_arrayref/ => sub {
my $sql = shift;
return (
$sql =~ /\brecipes\b/
? [
[qw/1 bob secretary/],
[qw/2 alice ceo/],
[qw/3 ovid idiot/],
]
: [ [ 1, 'Tartiflette' ], [ 2, 'Eggs Benedict' ], ];
},
],
],
});
Here are the allowed keys to the constructor:
=over 4
=item * C<package>
The name of the package to be butchered.
package => 'Hard::To::Load::Package'
=item * C<do_not_load>
Packages which must not be loaded. This is useful when there are a bunch of
C<use> or C<require> statements in the code which cause the target code to try
and load packages which may not be loadable.
do_not_load => [
'Apache::Never::Loads',
'Module::I::Do::Not::Have::Installed',
'Win32::Anything',
]
=item * C<predeclare>
Sometimes you need to simply predeclare a method or subroutine to ensure it
parses correctly, even if you don't need to execute that function (for
example, if you're replacing a subroutine which contains the offending code).
To do this, you can simply "predeclare a function or arrayref of functions
with optional prototypes.
predeclare => [ 'uniq (@)', 'some_other_function' ]
=item * C<subs>
This should point to a hashref of subroutine names and sub bodies. These will
be added to the package, overwriting any subroutines already there:
subs => {
existing => sub { 'replaced existing' },
reverse_string => sub {
my $arg = shift;
return scalar reverse $arg;
},
},
Note that any subroutinine listed in the C<subs> section will automatically be
predeclared.
=item * C<method_chains>
Method "chains" are frequent in bad code (and even in some good code). This is
when you see a class with a list of chained methods getting called. For
example:
return DBI->connect(@connect)
->selectall_arrayref(
'SELECT id, name, position FROM employees ORDER BY id');
The butcher allows you to declare a method chain and a subref which will be
executed. The structure is like this:
method_chains => [
[ $class1, @list_of_methods1, sub { @body } ],
[ $class2, @list_of_methods2, sub { @body } ],
[ $class3, @list_of_methods3, sub { @body } ],
],
For the DBI example above, assuming this was the only method chain in the
code, you would have something like:
method_chains => [
[ 'DBI', qw/connect selectall_arrayref/, \&some_sub ],
],
See C<Package::Butcher::Inflator> code to see how this works.
=item * C<import_on_use>
This defaults to false and you should hopefully not need it.
As a general rule, if you call C<< $butcher->use >>, the package's C<import>
method will be called I<after> you use the class to allow us to inject the new
code before importing. This means that if a class exports a 'foo' method and
you've replaced it with your own, you are generally guaranteed to get your
replacement when you call:
$butcher->use('foo');
However, if you class requires that the C<import> method be called at the at
time the class is "use"d, then you can specify this in the constructor:
import_on_use => 1,
=back
=head2 C<use>
my $butcher = Package::Butcher->new({ package ... });
$butcher->use(@import_list);
Once constructed, this method will "use" the package in question. You may pass
it the same import list that the package you're butchering takes. Note that if
you override C<import>, you're on your own.
=head2 C<require>
my $butcher = Package::Butcher->new({ package ... });
$butcher->require;
Like use, but does a C<require>.
=head1 AUTHOR
Curtis 'Ovid' Poe, C<< <ovid at cpan.org> >>
=head1 BUGS
Please report any bugs or feature requests to C<bug-package-butcher at
rt.cpan.org>, or through the web interface at
L<
http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Package-Butcher>. I will be
notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as
I make changes.
=head1 SUPPORT
You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.
perldoc Package::Butcher
You can also look for information at:
=over 4
=item * RT: CPAN's request tracker
L<
http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Package-Butcher>
=item * AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation
L<
http://annocpan.org/dist/Package-Butcher>
=item * CPAN Ratings
L<
http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Package-Butcher>
=item * Search CPAN
L<
http://search.cpan.org/dist/Package-Butcher/>
=back
=head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Flavio Glock for help with a parsing error.
=head1 LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2011 Curtis 'Ovid' Poe.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published
by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.
See
http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.
=cut
1;