NAME

Symbol::Get - Read Perl’s symbol table programmatically

SYNOPSIS

package Foo;

our $name = 'haha';
our @list = ( 1, 2, 3 );
our %hash = ( foo => 1, bar => 2 );

use constant my_const => 'haha';

use constant my_const_list => qw( a b c );

sub doit { ... }

my $name_sr = Symbol::Get::get('$Foo::name');    # \$name
my $list_ar = Symbol::Get::get('@Foo::list');    # \@list
my $hash_hr = Symbol::Get::get('%Foo::hash');    $ \%hash

#Defaults to __PACKAGE__ if none is given:
my $doit_cr = Symbol::Get::get('&doit');

#Constants:
my $const_val = Symbol::Get::copy_constant('Foo::my_const');
my @const_list = Symbol::Get::copy_constant('Foo::my_const_list');

#The below return the same results since get_names() defaults
#to the current package if none is given.
my @names = Symbol::Get::get_names('Foo');      # keys %Foo::
my @names = Symbol::Get::get_names();

DESCRIPTION

Occasionally I have need to reference a variable programmatically. This module facilitates that by providing an easy, syntactic-sugar-y, read-only interface to the symbol table.

The SYNOPSIS above should pretty well cover usage.

ABOUT PERL CONSTANTS

Previous versions of this module endorsed constructions like:

my $const_sr = Symbol::Get::get('Foo::my_const');
my $const_ar = Symbol::Get::get('Foo::my_const_list');

… to read constants from the symbol table. This isn’t reliable across Perl versions, though, so don’t do it; instead, use copy_constant().

SEE ALSO

• Symbol::Values

LICENSE

This module is licensed under the same license as Perl.