CPANPLUS::Shell::Default::Plugins::HOWTO(3pm)		 Perl Programmers Reference Guide	     CPANPLUS::Shell::Default::Plugins::HOWTO(3pm)

NAME

       CPANPLUS::Shell::Default::Plugins::HOWTO -- documentation on how to write your own plugins

SYNOPSIS

	   package CPANPLUS::Shell::Default::Plugins::MyPlugin;

	   ### return command => method mapping
	   sub plugins { ( myplugin1 => 'mp1', myplugin2 => 'mp2' ) }

	   ### method called when the command '/myplugin1' is issued
	   sub mp1 { .... }

	   ### method called when the command '/? myplugin1' is issued
	   sub mp1_help { return "Help Text" }

DESCRIPTION

       This pod text explains how to write your own plugins for "CPANPLUS::Shell::Default".

HOWTO

   Registering Plugin Modules
       Plugins are detected by using "Module::Pluggable". Every module in the "CPANPLUS::Shell::Default::Plugins::*" namespace is considered a
       plugin, and is attempted to be loaded.

       Therefor, any plugin must be declared in that namespace, in a corresponding ".pm" file.

   Registering Plugin Commands
       To register any plugin commands, a list of key value pairs must be returned by a "plugins" method in your package. The keys are the
       commands you wish to register, the values are the methods in the plugin package you wish to have called when the command is issued.

       For example, a simple 'Hello, World!' plugin:

	   package CPANPLUS::Shell::Default::Plugins::HW;

	   sub plugins { return ( helloworld => 'hw' ) };

	   sub hw { print "Hello, world!
" }

       When the user in the default shell now issues the "/helloworld" command, this command will be dispatched to the plugin, and its "hw" method
       will be called

   Registering Plugin Help
       To provide usage information for your plugin, the user of the default shell can type "/? PLUGIN_COMMAND". In that case, the function
       "PLUGIN_COMMAND_help" will be called in your plugin package.

       For example, extending the above example, when a user calls "/? helloworld", the function "hw_help" will be called, which might look like
       this:

	   sub hw_help { "    /helloworld      # prints "Hello, world!
" }

       If you dont provide a corresponding _help function to your commands, the default shell will handle it gracefully, but the user will be
       stuck without usage information on your commands, so it's considered undesirable to omit the help functions.

   Arguments to Plugin Commands
       Any plugin function will receive the following arguments when called, which are all positional:

       Classname -- The name of your plugin class
       Shell	 -- The CPANPLUS::Shell::Default object
       Backend	 -- The CPANPLUS::Backend object
       Command	 -- The command issued by the user
       Input	 -- The input string from the user
       Options	 -- A hashref of options provided by the user

       For example, the following command:

	   /helloworld bob --nofoo --bar=2 joe

       Would yield the following arguments:

	   sub hw {
	       my $class   = shift;    # CPANPLUS::Shell::Default::Plugins::HW
	       my $shell   = shift;    # CPANPLUS::Shell::Default object
	       my $cb	   = shift;    # CPANPLUS::Backend object
	       my $cmd	   = shift;    # 'helloworld'
	       my $input   = shift;    # 'bob joe'
	       my $opts    = shift;    # { foo => 0, bar => 2 }

	       ....
	   }

BUG REPORTS

       Please report bugs or other issues to <bug-cpanplus@rt.cpan.org<gt>.

AUTHOR

       This module by Jos Boumans <kane@cpan.org>.

COPYRIGHT

       The CPAN++ interface (of which this module is a part of) is copyright (c) 2001 - 2007, Jos Boumans <kane@cpan.org>. All rights reserved.

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

SEE ALSO

       CPANPLUS::Shell::Default, CPANPLUS::Shell, cpanp

perl v5.12.1							    2010-04-26			     CPANPLUS::Shell::Default::Plugins::HOWTO(3pm)