ObjectTemplate(3pm)					User Contributed Perl Documentation				       ObjectTemplate(3pm)

NAME

       Class::ObjectTemplate - Perl extension for an optimized template builder base class.

SYNOPSIS

	 package Foo;
	 use Class::ObjectTemplate;
	 require Exporter;
	 @ISA = qw(Class::ObjectTemplate Exporter);

	 attributes('one', 'two', 'three');

	 # initialize will be called by new()
	 sub initialize {
	   my $self = shift;
	   $self->three(1) unless defined $self->three();
	 }

	 use Foo;
	 $foo = Foo->new();

	 # store 27 in the 'one' attribute
	 $foo->one(27);

	 # check the value in the 'two' attribute
	 die "should be undefined" if defined $foo->two();

	 # set using the utility method
	 $foo->set_attribute('one',27);

	 # check using the utility method
	 $two = $foo->get_attribute('two');

	 # set more than one attribute using the named parameter style
	 $foo->set_attributes('one'=>27, 'two'=>42);

	 # or using array references
	 $foo->set_attributes(['one','two'],[27,42]);

	 # get more than one attribute
	 @list = $foo->get_attributes('one', 'two');

	 # get a list of all attributes known by an object
	 @attrs = $foo->get_attribute_names();

	 # check that initialize() is called properly
	 die "initialize didn't set three()" unless $foo->three();

DESCRIPTION

       Class::ObjectTemplate is a utility class to assist in the building of other Object Oriented Perl classes.

       It was described in detail in the O'Reilly book, "Advanced Perl Programming" by Sriram Srinivasam.

   EXPORT
       attributes(@name_list)

       This method creates a shared setter and getter methods for every name in the list. The method also creates the class constructor, "new()".

       WARNING: This method must be invoked within the module for every class that inherits from Class::ObjectTemplate, even if that class defines
       no attributes. For a class defining no new attributes, it should invoke "attributes()" with no arguments.

AUTHOR

       Original code by Sriram Srinivasam.

       Fixes and CPAN module by Jason E. Stewart (jason@openinformatics.com)

SEE ALSO

       http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/advperl/

       perl(1).

       Class::ObjectTemplate::DB

perl v5.12.4							    2002-02-25						       ObjectTemplate(3pm)