/ 
Data-Section-0.001
River stage four • 58 direct dependents • 1476 total dependents
/ Data::Section

NAME

Data::Section - read multiple hunks of data out of your DATA section

VERSION

version 0.001

SYNOPSIS

package Letter::Resignation;
use Data::Section -setup;

sub quit {
  my ($class, $angry, %arg) = @_;

  my $template = $self->section_data(
    ($angry ? "angry_" : "professional_") . "letter"
  );

  return fill_in($$template, \%arg);
}

__DATA__
__[ angry_letter ]__
Dear jerks,

  I quit!

-- 
{{ $name }}
__[ professional_letter ]__
Dear {{ $boss }},

  I quit, jerks!

-- 
{{ $name }}

DESCRIPTION

Data::Section provides an easy way to access multiple named chunks of line-oriented data in your module's DATA section. It was written to allow modules to store their own templates, but probably has other uses.

EXPORTS

To get the methods exported by Data::Section, you must import like this:

use Data::Section -setup;

Optional arguments may be given to Data::Section like this:

use Data::Section -setup => { ... };

Valid arguments are:

inherit - if true, allow packages to inherit the data of the packages
          from which they inherit

header_re - if given, changes the regex used to find section headers
            in the data section; it should leave the section name in $1

Three methods are exported by Data::Section:

section_data

my $string_ref = $pkg->section_data($name);

This method returns a reference to a string containing the data from the name section, either in the invocant's DATA section or in that of one of its ancestors. (The ancestor must also derive from the class that imported Data::Section.)

By default, named sections are delimited by lines that look like this:

__[ name ]__

You can use as many underscores as you want, and the space around the name is optional. This pattern can be configured with the header_re option (see above).

merged_section_data

my $data = $pkg->merged_section_data;

This method returns a hashref containing all the data extracted from the package data for all the classes from which the invocant inherits -- as long as those classes also inherit from the package into which Data::Section was imported.

In other words, given this inheritence tree:

A
 \
  B   C
   \ /
    D

...if Data::Section was imported by A, then when D's merged_section_data is invoked, C's data section will not be considered. (This prevents the read position of C's data handle from being altered unexpectedly.)

The keys in the returned hashref are the section names, and the values are references to the strings extracted from the data sections.

local_section_data

my $data = $pkg->local_section_data;

This method returns a hashref containing all the data extracted from the package on which the method was invoked. If called on an object, it will operate on the package into which the object was blessed.

This method needs to be used carefull, because it's weird. It returns only the data for the package on which it was invoked. If the package on which it was invoked has no data sections, it returns an empty hashref.

AUTHOR

Ricardo SIGNES <rjbs@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2008 by Ricardo SIGNES.

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