Data::Grove - phpMan

NAME
    Data::Grove -- support for deeply nested structures

SYNOPSIS
     use Data::Grove;

     $object = MyPackage->new;

     package MyPackage;
     @ISA = qw{Data::Grove};

DESCRIPTION
    "Data::Grove" provides support for deeply nested tree or graph
    structures. "Data::Grove" is intended primarily for Perl module authors
    writing modules with many types or classes of objects that need to be
    manipulated and extended in a consistent and flexible way.

    "Data::Grove" is best used by creating a core set of ``data'' classes
    and then incrementally adding functionality to the core data classes by
    using ``extension'' modules. One reason for this design is so that the
    data classes can be swapped out and the extension modules can work with
    new data sources. For example, these other data sources could be
    disk-based, network-based or built on top of a relational database.

    Two extension modules that come with "Data::Grove" are
    "Data::Grove::Parent" and "Data::Grove::Visitor". "Data::Grove::Parent"
    adds a `"Parent"' property to grove objects and implements a `"root"'
    method to grove objects to return the root node of the tree from
    anywhere in the tree and a `"rootpath"' method to return a list of nodes
    between the root node and ``this'' node. "Data::Grove::Visitor" adds
    callback methods `"accept"' and `"accept_name"' that call your handler
    or receiver module back by object type name or the object's name.

    "Data::Grove" objects do not contain parent references, Perl garbage
    collection will delete them when no longer referenced and sub-structures
    can be shared among several structures. "Data::Grove::Parent" is used to
    create temporary objects with parent pointers.

    Properties of data classes are accessed directly using Perl's hash
    functions (i.e. `"$object->{Property}"'). Extension modules may also
    define properties that they support or use, for example
    Data::Grove::Parent adds `"Parent"' and `"Raw"' properties and Visitor
    depends on `"Name"' and `"Content"' properties.

    See the module "XML::Grove" for an example implementation of
    "Data::Grove".

METHODS
    new( PROPERTIES )
        Return a new object blessed into the SubClass, with the given
        properties. PROPERTIES may either be a list of key/value pairs, a
        single hash containing key/value pairs, or an existing "Data::Grove"
        object. If an existing "Data::Grove" is passed to `"new()"', a
        shallow copy of that object will be returned. A shallow copy means
        that you are returned a new object, but all of the objects
        underneath still refer to the original objects.

AUTHOR
    Ken MacLeod, ken AT bitsko.us

SEE ALSO
    perl(1)