NAME

Moose::Cookbook::Roles::ApplicationToInstance - Applying a role to an object instance

VERSION

version 2.2207

SYNOPSIS

            

              
              
package MyApp::Role::Job::Manager;
use List::Util qw( first );
use Moose::Role;
has 'employees' => (
    is  => 'rw',
    isa => 'ArrayRef[Employee]',
);
sub assign_work {
    my $self = shift;
    my $work = shift;
    my $employee = first { !$_->has_work } @{ $self->employees };
    die 'All my employees have work to do!' unless $employee;
    $employee->work($work);
}
package main;
my $lisa = Employee->new( name => 'Lisa' );
MyApp::Role::Job::Manager->meta->apply($lisa);
my $homer = Employee->new( name => 'Homer' );
my $bart  = Employee->new( name => 'Bart' );
my $marge = Employee->new( name => 'Marge' );
$lisa->employees( [ $homer, $bart, $marge ] );
$lisa->assign_work('mow the lawn');
            
          

DESCRIPTION

In this recipe, we show how a role can be applied to an object. In this specific case, we are giving an employee managerial responsibilities.

Applying a role to an object is simple. The Moose::Meta::Role object provides an apply method. This method will do the right thing when given an object instance.

            

              
              
MyApp::Role::Job::Manager->meta->apply($lisa);
            
          

We could also use the apply_all_roles function from Moose::Util.

            

              
              
apply_all_roles( $person, MyApp::Role::Job::Manager->meta );
            
          

The main advantage of using apply_all_roles is that it can be used to apply more than one role at a time.

We could also pass parameters to the role we're applying:

            

              
              
MyApp::Role::Job::Manager->meta->apply(
    $lisa,
    -alias => { assign_work => 'get_off_your_lazy_behind' },
);
            
          

We saw examples of how method exclusion and alias working in Moose::Cookbook::Roles::Restartable_AdvancedComposition.

CONCLUSION

Applying a role to an object instance is a useful tool for adding behavior to existing objects. In our example, it is effective used to model a promotion.

It can also be useful as a sort of controlled monkey-patching for existing code, particularly non-Moose code. For example, you could create a debugging role and apply it to an object at runtime.

AUTHORS

• Stevan Little <stevan@cpan.org>

• Dave Rolsky <autarch@urth.org>

• Jesse Luehrs <doy@cpan.org>

• Shawn M Moore <sartak@cpan.org>

• יובל קוג'מן (Yuval Kogman) <nothingmuch@woobling.org>

• Karen Etheridge <ether@cpan.org>

• Florian Ragwitz <rafl@debian.org>

• Hans Dieter Pearcey <hdp@cpan.org>

• Chris Prather <chris@prather.org>

• Matt S Trout <mstrout@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2006 by Infinity Interactive, Inc.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.