/ 
Data-Pulp-0.01
River stage zero No dependents
/ Data::Pulp

NAME

Data::Pulp - Pulp your data into a consistent goop

VERSION

Version 0.01

SYNOPSIS

use Data::Pulp;

my $pulper = pulper
    case { $_ eq 'apple' } then { 'APPLE' }
    case { $_ eq 'banana' }
    case { $_ eq 'cherry' } then { 'CHERRY' }
    case { ref eq 'SCALAR' } then { 'SCALAR' }
    empty { 'empty' }
    nil { 'nil' }
    case { m/xyzzy/ } then { 'Nothing happens.' }
    default { croak "Don't understand $_" }
;

$pulper->pulp( 'apple' )        # APPLE
$pulper->pulp( 'banana' )       # CHERRY
$pulper->pulp( 'xyyxyzzyx' )    # Nothing happens.
$pulper->pulp( undef )          # nil
$pulper->pulp( '' )             # empty
$pulper->pulp( '1' )            # Throw an exception: Don't understand 1

# You can also operate on an array or hash

my $set = $pulper->prepare( [ qw/apple banana cherry/, '', undef, qw/xyzzy xyyxyzzyx grape/ ] )

$set->all       # APPLE, CHERRY, CHERRY, empty, nil, Nothing happens ...
$set->first     # APPLE
$set->last      # Throw an exception: Don't understand grape

DESCRIPTION

Data::Pulp is a tool for coercing and/or validating input data. Instead of doing this:

if ( defined $value ) {
    if ( ref $value eq ... ) {
        ...
    }
    elsif ( $value =~ m/.../ ) {
        ...
    }
    ...
}
else {
}

You can do something like this:

my $pulper = pulper
    case { $_ eq ... }  then { ... }
    case { m/.../ }     then { ... }
    nil { ... # Do action if value is undefined }
;

$pulper->pulp( $value )

A pulper can act transparently on a single value, ARRAY, or HASH:

my $set = $pulper->prepare( $value ) # A single value list
my $set = $pulper->prepare( [ $value, ... ] )
my $set = $pulper->prepare( { key => $value, ... } ) # Throws away the keys, basically

So, given a subroutine:

sub method {
    my $data = shift;
    # $data could be a single value, or an array, or even a hash
    my $set = $pulper->prepare( $data )
    my @data = $set->all # Get all the data coerced how you want
                         # or throw an exception if something bad is encountered

    ...
}

AUTHOR

Robert Krimen, <rkrimen at cpan.org>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-data-pulp at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Data-Pulp. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc Data::Pulp

You can also look for information at:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright 2009 Robert Krimen, all rights reserved.

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