Contents
TopSYNOPSIS
Toppackage My::Module;
use base qw( Template::Base );
sub _init {
    my ($self, $config) = @_;
    $self->{ doodah } = $config->{ doodah }
        || return $self->error("No 'doodah' specified");
    return $self;
}
package main;
my $object = My::Module->new({ doodah => 'foobar' })
    || die My::Module->error();
              DESCRIPTION
TopBase class module which implements a constructor and error reporting functionality for various Template Toolkit modules.
PUBLIC METHODS
Topnew(\%config)
Top
                          Constructor method which accepts a reference to a hash array or a list of
                          name => value parameters which are folded into a hash.
                          The _init() method is then called, passing the configuration
                          hash and should return true/false to indicate success or failure. A new
                          object reference is returned, or undef on error. Any error message raised
                          can be examined via the error() class method
                          or directly via the $ERROR package variable in the derived
                          class.
                        
my $module = My::Module->new({ ... })
    || die My::Module->error(), "\n";
my $module = My::Module->new({ ... })
    || die "constructor error: $My::Module::ERROR\n";
                  error($msg, ...)
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                          May be called as an object method to get/set the internal
                          _ERROR member or as a class method to get/set the
                          $ERROR variable in the derived class's package.
                        
my $module = My::Module->new({ ... })
    || die My::Module->error(), "\n";
$module->do_something() 
    || die $module->error(), "\n";
                        When called with parameters (multiple params are concatenated), this method will set the relevant variable and return undef. This is most often used within object methods to report errors to the caller.
package My::Module;
sub foobar {
    my $self = shift;
    # some other code...
    return $self->error('some kind of error...')
        if $some_condition;
}
                  debug($msg, ...)
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                          Generates a debugging message by concatenating all arguments passed into
                          a string and printing it to STDERR. A prefix is added to
                          indicate the module of the caller.
                        
package My::Module;
sub foobar {
    my $self = shift;
    $self->debug('called foobar()');
    # some other code...
}
                        
                          When the foobar() method is called, the following message is
                          sent to STDERR:
                        
[My::Module] called foobar()
                          Objects can set an internal DEBUG value which the
                          debug() method will examine. If this value sets the relevant
                          bits to indicate DEBUG_CALLER then the file and line number
                          of the caller will be appened to the message.
                        
use Template::Constants qw( :debug );
my $module = My::Module->new({
    DEBUG => DEBUG_SERVICE | DEBUG_CONTEXT | DEBUG_CALLER,
});
$module->foobar();
                        This generates an error message such as:
[My::Module] called foobar() at My/Module.pm line 6
module_version()
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                          Returns the version number for a module, as defined by the
                          $VERSION package variable.
                        
AUTHOR
TopAndy Wardley <abw@wardley.org> http://wardley.org/
COPYRIGHT
TopCopyright (C) 1996-2007 Andy Wardley. All Rights Reserved.
This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.