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1 package Exporter;
3 require 5.006;
5 # Be lean.
6 #use strict;
7 #no strict 'refs';
9 our $Debug = 0;
10 our $ExportLevel = 0;
11 our $Verbose ||= 0;
12 our $VERSION = '5.58';
13 our (%Cache);
14 $Carp::Internal{Exporter} = 1;
16 sub as_heavy {
17 require Exporter::Heavy;
18 # Unfortunately, this does not work if the caller is aliased as *name = \&foo
19 # Thus the need to create a lot of identical subroutines
20 my $c = (caller(1))[3];
21 $c =~ s/.*:://;
22 \&{"Exporter::Heavy::heavy_$c"};
25 sub export {
26 goto &{as_heavy()};
29 sub import {
30 my $pkg = shift;
31 my $callpkg = caller($ExportLevel);
33 if ($pkg eq "Exporter" and @_ and $_[0] eq "import") {
34 *{$callpkg."::import"} = \&import;
35 return;
38 # We *need* to treat @{"$pkg\::EXPORT_FAIL"} since Carp uses it :-(
39 my($exports, $fail) = (\@{"$pkg\::EXPORT"}, \@{"$pkg\::EXPORT_FAIL"});
40 return export $pkg, $callpkg, @_
41 if $Verbose or $Debug or @$fail > 1;
42 my $export_cache = ($Cache{$pkg} ||= {});
43 my $args = @_ or @_ = @$exports;
45 local $_;
46 if ($args and not %$export_cache) {
47 s/^&//, $export_cache->{$_} = 1
48 foreach (@$exports, @{"$pkg\::EXPORT_OK"});
50 my $heavy;
51 # Try very hard not to use {} and hence have to enter scope on the foreach
52 # We bomb out of the loop with last as soon as heavy is set.
53 if ($args or $fail) {
54 ($heavy = (/\W/ or $args and not exists $export_cache->{$_}
55 or @$fail and $_ eq $fail->[0])) and last
56 foreach (@_);
57 } else {
58 ($heavy = /\W/) and last
59 foreach (@_);
61 return export $pkg, $callpkg, ($args ? @_ : ()) if $heavy;
62 local $SIG{__WARN__} =
63 sub {require Carp; &Carp::carp};
64 # shortcut for the common case of no type character
65 *{"$callpkg\::$_"} = \&{"$pkg\::$_"} foreach @_;
68 # Default methods
70 sub export_fail {
71 my $self = shift;
72 @_;
75 # Unfortunately, caller(1)[3] "does not work" if the caller is aliased as
76 # *name = \&foo. Thus the need to create a lot of identical subroutines
77 # Otherwise we could have aliased them to export().
79 sub export_to_level {
80 goto &{as_heavy()};
83 sub export_tags {
84 goto &{as_heavy()};
87 sub export_ok_tags {
88 goto &{as_heavy()};
91 sub require_version {
92 goto &{as_heavy()};
96 __END__
98 =head1 NAME
100 Exporter - Implements default import method for modules
102 =head1 SYNOPSIS
104 In module YourModule.pm:
106 package YourModule;
107 require Exporter;
108 @ISA = qw(Exporter);
109 @EXPORT_OK = qw(munge frobnicate); # symbols to export on request
113 package YourModule;
114 use Exporter 'import'; # gives you Exporter's import() method directly
115 @EXPORT_OK = qw(munge frobnicate); # symbols to export on request
117 In other files which wish to use YourModule:
119 use ModuleName qw(frobnicate); # import listed symbols
120 frobnicate ($left, $right) # calls YourModule::frobnicate
122 =head1 DESCRIPTION
124 The Exporter module implements an C<import> method which allows a module
125 to export functions and variables to its users' namespaces. Many modules
126 use Exporter rather than implementing their own C<import> method because
127 Exporter provides a highly flexible interface, with an implementation optimised
128 for the common case.
130 Perl automatically calls the C<import> method when processing a
131 C<use> statement for a module. Modules and C<use> are documented
132 in L<perlfunc> and L<perlmod>. Understanding the concept of
133 modules and how the C<use> statement operates is important to
134 understanding the Exporter.
136 =head2 How to Export
138 The arrays C<@EXPORT> and C<@EXPORT_OK> in a module hold lists of
139 symbols that are going to be exported into the users name space by
140 default, or which they can request to be exported, respectively. The
141 symbols can represent functions, scalars, arrays, hashes, or typeglobs.
142 The symbols must be given by full name with the exception that the
143 ampersand in front of a function is optional, e.g.
145 @EXPORT = qw(afunc $scalar @array); # afunc is a function
146 @EXPORT_OK = qw(&bfunc %hash *typeglob); # explicit prefix on &bfunc
148 If you are only exporting function names it is recommended to omit the
149 ampersand, as the implementation is faster this way.
151 =head2 Selecting What To Export
153 Do B<not> export method names!
155 Do B<not> export anything else by default without a good reason!
157 Exports pollute the namespace of the module user. If you must export
158 try to use @EXPORT_OK in preference to @EXPORT and avoid short or
159 common symbol names to reduce the risk of name clashes.
161 Generally anything not exported is still accessible from outside the
162 module using the ModuleName::item_name (or $blessed_ref-E<gt>method)
163 syntax. By convention you can use a leading underscore on names to
164 informally indicate that they are 'internal' and not for public use.
166 (It is actually possible to get private functions by saying:
168 my $subref = sub { ... };
169 $subref->(@args); # Call it as a function
170 $obj->$subref(@args); # Use it as a method
172 However if you use them for methods it is up to you to figure out
173 how to make inheritance work.)
175 As a general rule, if the module is trying to be object oriented
176 then export nothing. If it's just a collection of functions then
177 @EXPORT_OK anything but use @EXPORT with caution. For function and
178 method names use barewords in preference to names prefixed with
179 ampersands for the export lists.
181 Other module design guidelines can be found in L<perlmod>.
183 =head2 How to Import
185 In other files which wish to use your module there are three basic ways for
186 them to load your module and import its symbols:
188 =over 4
190 =item C<use ModuleName;>
192 This imports all the symbols from ModuleName's @EXPORT into the namespace
193 of the C<use> statement.
195 =item C<use ModuleName ();>
197 This causes perl to load your module but does not import any symbols.
199 =item C<use ModuleName qw(...);>
201 This imports only the symbols listed by the caller into their namespace.
202 All listed symbols must be in your @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK, else an error
203 occurs. The advanced export features of Exporter are accessed like this,
204 but with list entries that are syntactically distinct from symbol names.
206 =back
208 Unless you want to use its advanced features, this is probably all you
209 need to know to use Exporter.
211 =head1 Advanced features
213 =head2 Specialised Import Lists
215 If any of the entries in an import list begins with !, : or / then
216 the list is treated as a series of specifications which either add to
217 or delete from the list of names to import. They are processed left to
218 right. Specifications are in the form:
220 [!]name This name only
221 [!]:DEFAULT All names in @EXPORT
222 [!]:tag All names in $EXPORT_TAGS{tag} anonymous list
223 [!]/pattern/ All names in @EXPORT and @EXPORT_OK which match
225 A leading ! indicates that matching names should be deleted from the
226 list of names to import. If the first specification is a deletion it
227 is treated as though preceded by :DEFAULT. If you just want to import
228 extra names in addition to the default set you will still need to
229 include :DEFAULT explicitly.
231 e.g., Module.pm defines:
233 @EXPORT = qw(A1 A2 A3 A4 A5);
234 @EXPORT_OK = qw(B1 B2 B3 B4 B5);
235 %EXPORT_TAGS = (T1 => [qw(A1 A2 B1 B2)], T2 => [qw(A1 A2 B3 B4)]);
237 Note that you cannot use tags in @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK.
238 Names in EXPORT_TAGS must also appear in @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK.
240 An application using Module can say something like:
242 use Module qw(:DEFAULT :T2 !B3 A3);
244 Other examples include:
246 use Socket qw(!/^[AP]F_/ !SOMAXCONN !SOL_SOCKET);
247 use POSIX qw(:errno_h :termios_h !TCSADRAIN !/^EXIT/);
249 Remember that most patterns (using //) will need to be anchored
250 with a leading ^, e.g., C</^EXIT/> rather than C</EXIT/>.
252 You can say C<BEGIN { $Exporter::Verbose=1 }> to see how the
253 specifications are being processed and what is actually being imported
254 into modules.
256 =head2 Exporting without using Exporter's import method
258 Exporter has a special method, 'export_to_level' which is used in situations
259 where you can't directly call Exporter's import method. The export_to_level
260 method looks like:
262 MyPackage->export_to_level($where_to_export, $package, @what_to_export);
264 where $where_to_export is an integer telling how far up the calling stack
265 to export your symbols, and @what_to_export is an array telling what
266 symbols *to* export (usually this is @_). The $package argument is
267 currently unused.
269 For example, suppose that you have a module, A, which already has an
270 import function:
272 package A;
274 @ISA = qw(Exporter);
275 @EXPORT_OK = qw ($b);
277 sub import
279 $A::b = 1; # not a very useful import method
282 and you want to Export symbol $A::b back to the module that called
283 package A. Since Exporter relies on the import method to work, via
284 inheritance, as it stands Exporter::import() will never get called.
285 Instead, say the following:
287 package A;
288 @ISA = qw(Exporter);
289 @EXPORT_OK = qw ($b);
291 sub import
293 $A::b = 1;
294 A->export_to_level(1, @_);
297 This will export the symbols one level 'above' the current package - ie: to
298 the program or module that used package A.
300 Note: Be careful not to modify C<@_> at all before you call export_to_level
301 - or people using your package will get very unexplained results!
303 =head2 Exporting without inheriting from Exporter
305 By including Exporter in your @ISA you inherit an Exporter's import() method
306 but you also inherit several other helper methods which you probably don't
307 want. To avoid this you can do
309 package YourModule;
310 use Exporter qw( import );
312 which will export Exporter's own import() method into YourModule.
313 Everything will work as before but you won't need to include Exporter in
314 @YourModule::ISA.
316 =head2 Module Version Checking
318 The Exporter module will convert an attempt to import a number from a
319 module into a call to $module_name-E<gt>require_version($value). This can
320 be used to validate that the version of the module being used is
321 greater than or equal to the required version.
323 The Exporter module supplies a default require_version method which
324 checks the value of $VERSION in the exporting module.
326 Since the default require_version method treats the $VERSION number as
327 a simple numeric value it will regard version 1.10 as lower than
328 1.9. For this reason it is strongly recommended that you use numbers
329 with at least two decimal places, e.g., 1.09.
331 =head2 Managing Unknown Symbols
333 In some situations you may want to prevent certain symbols from being
334 exported. Typically this applies to extensions which have functions
335 or constants that may not exist on some systems.
337 The names of any symbols that cannot be exported should be listed
338 in the C<@EXPORT_FAIL> array.
340 If a module attempts to import any of these symbols the Exporter
341 will give the module an opportunity to handle the situation before
342 generating an error. The Exporter will call an export_fail method
343 with a list of the failed symbols:
345 @failed_symbols = $module_name->export_fail(@failed_symbols);
347 If the export_fail method returns an empty list then no error is
348 recorded and all the requested symbols are exported. If the returned
349 list is not empty then an error is generated for each symbol and the
350 export fails. The Exporter provides a default export_fail method which
351 simply returns the list unchanged.
353 Uses for the export_fail method include giving better error messages
354 for some symbols and performing lazy architectural checks (put more
355 symbols into @EXPORT_FAIL by default and then take them out if someone
356 actually tries to use them and an expensive check shows that they are
357 usable on that platform).
359 =head2 Tag Handling Utility Functions
361 Since the symbols listed within %EXPORT_TAGS must also appear in either
362 @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK, two utility functions are provided which allow
363 you to easily add tagged sets of symbols to @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK:
365 %EXPORT_TAGS = (foo => [qw(aa bb cc)], bar => [qw(aa cc dd)]);
367 Exporter::export_tags('foo'); # add aa, bb and cc to @EXPORT
368 Exporter::export_ok_tags('bar'); # add aa, cc and dd to @EXPORT_OK
370 Any names which are not tags are added to @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK
371 unchanged but will trigger a warning (with C<-w>) to avoid misspelt tags
372 names being silently added to @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK. Future versions
373 may make this a fatal error.
375 =head2 Generating combined tags
377 If several symbol categories exist in %EXPORT_TAGS, it's usually
378 useful to create the utility ":all" to simplify "use" statements.
380 The simplest way to do this is:
382 %EXPORT_TAGS = (foo => [qw(aa bb cc)], bar => [qw(aa cc dd)]);
384 # add all the other ":class" tags to the ":all" class,
385 # deleting duplicates
387 my %seen;
389 push @{$EXPORT_TAGS{all}},
390 grep {!$seen{$_}++} @{$EXPORT_TAGS{$_}} foreach keys %EXPORT_TAGS;
393 CGI.pm creates an ":all" tag which contains some (but not really
394 all) of its categories. That could be done with one small
395 change:
397 # add some of the other ":class" tags to the ":all" class,
398 # deleting duplicates
400 my %seen;
402 push @{$EXPORT_TAGS{all}},
403 grep {!$seen{$_}++} @{$EXPORT_TAGS{$_}}
404 foreach qw/html2 html3 netscape form cgi internal/;
407 Note that the tag names in %EXPORT_TAGS don't have the leading ':'.
409 =head2 C<AUTOLOAD>ed Constants
411 Many modules make use of C<AUTOLOAD>ing for constant subroutines to
412 avoid having to compile and waste memory on rarely used values (see
413 L<perlsub> for details on constant subroutines). Calls to such
414 constant subroutines are not optimized away at compile time because
415 they can't be checked at compile time for constancy.
417 Even if a prototype is available at compile time, the body of the
418 subroutine is not (it hasn't been C<AUTOLOAD>ed yet). perl needs to
419 examine both the C<()> prototype and the body of a subroutine at
420 compile time to detect that it can safely replace calls to that
421 subroutine with the constant value.
423 A workaround for this is to call the constants once in a C<BEGIN> block:
425 package My ;
427 use Socket ;
429 foo( SO_LINGER ); ## SO_LINGER NOT optimized away; called at runtime
430 BEGIN { SO_LINGER }
431 foo( SO_LINGER ); ## SO_LINGER optimized away at compile time.
433 This forces the C<AUTOLOAD> for C<SO_LINGER> to take place before
434 SO_LINGER is encountered later in C<My> package.
436 If you are writing a package that C<AUTOLOAD>s, consider forcing
437 an C<AUTOLOAD> for any constants explicitly imported by other packages
438 or which are usually used when your package is C<use>d.
440 =cut