From c30f1015c2de2cdd4b7a13f2737ddf685d49f63b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Michael Witten Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 14:59:30 -0500 Subject: Docs: Clarify that a class is not an instance Signed-off-by: Michael Witten --- pod/perlboot.pod | 18 ++++++------------ 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-) diff --git a/pod/perlboot.pod b/pod/perlboot.pod index 7d39843a69..3399171879 100644 --- a/pod/perlboot.pod +++ b/pod/perlboot.pod @@ -603,7 +603,7 @@ right?) But was there anything specific to C in that method? No. Therefore, it's also the same recipe for building anything else that inherited from -C, so let's put it there: +C, so let's put C and C there: { package Animal; sub speak { @@ -649,9 +649,7 @@ classname). Let's modify the C method first to notice the change: sub name { my $either = shift; - ref $either - ? $$either # it's an instance, return name - : "an unnamed $either"; # it's a class, return generic + ref $either ? $$either : "Any $either"; } Here, the C operator comes in handy to select either the @@ -660,7 +658,7 @@ instance or a class. Note that I've changed the first parameter holder to C<$either> to show that this is intended: my $horse = Horse->named("Mr. Ed"); - print Horse->name, "\n"; # prints "an unnamed Horse\n" + print Horse->name, "\n"; # prints "Any Horse\n" print $horse->name, "\n"; # prints "Mr Ed.\n" and now we'll fix C to use this: @@ -685,9 +683,7 @@ Let's train our animals to eat: } sub name { my $either = shift; - ref $either - ? $$either # it's an instance, return name - : "an unnamed $either"; # it's a class, return generic + ref $either ? $$either : "Any $either"; } sub speak { my $either = shift; @@ -717,7 +713,7 @@ And now try it out: which prints: Mr. Ed eats hay. - an unnamed Sheep eats grass. + Any Sheep eats grass. An instance method with parameters gets invoked with the instance, and then the list of parameters. So that first invocation is like: @@ -750,9 +746,7 @@ to worry, because that's pretty easy to fix up: ## in Animal sub name { my $either = shift; - ref $either ? - $either->{Name} : - "an unnamed $either"; + ref $either ? $either->{Name} : "Any $either"; } And of course C still builds a scalar sheep, so let's fix that -- cgit v1.2.1