/ 
Path-Map-0.02
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/ Path::Map

NAME

Path::Map - map paths to handlers

VERSION

0.02

SYNOPSIS

my $mapper = Path::Map->new(
    '/x/y/z' => 'XYZ',
    '/a/b/c' => 'ABC',
    '/a/b'   => 'AB',

    '/date/:year/:month/:day' => 'Date',
);

if (my $match = $mapper->lookup('/date/2013/12/25')) {
    # $match->handler is 'Date'
    # $match->variables is { year => 2012, month => 12, day => 25 }
}

# Add more mappings later
$mapper->add_handler($path => $target)

DESCRIPTION

This class maps paths to handlers. The paths can contain variable path segments, which match against any incoming path segment, where the matching segments are saved as named variables for later retrieval.

Note that the handlers being mapped to can be any arbitrary data, not just strings as illustrated in the synopsis.

Comparison with Path::Router

This class fulfills some of the same jobs as Path::Router, with slightly different design goals. Broadly speaking, Path::Map is a lighter, faster, but less featureful version of Path::Router.

I've listed a few points of difference here to help highlight the pros and cons of each class.

Speed

The main goal for Path::Map is lookup speed. Path::Router uses regexes to do lookups, but Path::Map uses hash lookups. Path::Map seems to be at least an order of magnitude faster based on my benchmarks, and performance doesn't degrade with the number of routes that are added. The main source of performance degradation for Path::Map is path depth, Path::Router degrades less with depth but more with width.

This approach also means that the order in which routes are added makes no difference to Path::Map.

Reversibility

Path::Router has a specific aim of being reversible. That is to say you can construct a path from a set of parameters. Path::Map does not currently have this ability, patches welcome!

Validation

Path::Map has no built-in ability to validate path variables in any way. Obviously validation can be done externally after the fact, but that doesn't allow for the more complex routing rules possible in Path::Router.

In other words, it's not possible for Path::Map to differentiate two path templates which differ only in the variable segments (e.g. /blog/:name vs /blog/:id where id matches \d+ and name matches \D+).

Dependencies

Path::Map has a very small dependency chain, whereas Path::Router is based on Moose, so has a relatively high dependency footprint. If you're already using Moose, there's obviously no additional cost in using Path::Router.

METHODS

new

$mapper = $class->new(@pairs)

The constructor.

Takes an even-sized list and passes each pair to "add_handler".

add_handler

$mapper->add_handler($path_template, $handler)

Adds a single item to the mapping.

The path template should be a string comprising slash-delimited path segments, where a path segment may contain any character other than the slash. Any segment beginning with a colon (:) denotes a mandatory named variable. Empty segments, including those implied by leading or trailing slashes are ignored.

For example, these are all identical path templates:

/a/:var/b
a/:var/b/
//a//:var//b//

The order in which these templates are added has no bearing on the lookup, except that later additions with identical templates overwrite earlier ones.

lookup

$match = $mapper->lookup($path)

Returns a Path::Map::Match object if the path matches a known path template, undef otherwise.

The two main methods on the match object are:

handler

The handler that was matched, identical to whatever was originally passed to "add_handler".

variables

The named path variables as a hashref.

handlers

@handlers = $mapper->handlers()

Returns all of the handlers in no particular order.

SEE ALSO

Path::Router

AUTHOR

Matt Lawrence <mattlaw@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT

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