/ 
Class-Void-0.01
River stage zero No dependents
/ Class::Void

NAME

Class::Void - A class that stringifies to nothing for whatever you do with it

SYNOPSIS

use Class::Void;

my $object = Class::Void->new;

$object->foo->bar("baz")->foo;
print $object->employees("bob_smith")->age;
print ($object->bla("test")->foo->bar->baz * 2 / 2) * $object ** 8;

DESCRIPTION

All method calls against this class or one of its instances return another instance of the class. The behavior is the same for operations. Stringification returns undef. Thats about it.

"Why the hell would I need that?"

Everytime you have some class which isn't quite finished or which doesnt provide a way to quietly do nothing, you can use this module as a stub or a plug for the hole. This might be a web-based database maintenance tool, where you quickly need an empty page for new entries or a leave in a tree that needs something which doesnt die on method calls but which doesnt take much memory, too.

I'd be very interested in other uses, so please drop me a mail if you did something fancy with this module.

BUGS

Using this module might be a bug :-) Seriously, I need to think about a way to not only handle method calls and operations but also evil people who mess around with the underlying data structure. Of course, I could have separate sub-classes for blessed Arrays, Hashes, etc, but first I really don't know what a blessed RegEx should do in this context, and second if one messes around with encapsulation one should expect to shoot oneself in the foot.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2000-2001 Malte Ubl <ubl@schaffhausen.de> All rights reserved.

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