phpman > perldoc > Template::Stash::Context

NAME
    Template::Stash::Context - Experimetal stash allowing list/scalar context definition

SYNOPSIS
        use Template;
        use Template::Stash::Context;

        my $stash = Template::Stash::Context->new(\%vars);
        my $tt2   = Template->new({ STASH => $stash });

DESCRIPTION
    This is an alternate stash object which includes a patch from Craig Barratt to implement various
    new virtual methods to allow dotted template variable to denote if object methods and
    subroutines should be called in scalar or list context. It adds a little overhead to each stash
    call and I'm a little wary of applying that to the core default stash without investigating the
    effects first. So for now, it's implemented as a separate stash module which will allow us to
    test it out, benchmark it and switch it in or out as we require.

    This is what Craig has to say about it:

    Here's a better set of features for the core. Attached is a new version of Stash.pm (based on
    TT2.02) that:

    * supports the special op "scalar" that forces scalar context on function calls, eg:

        cgi.param("foo").scalar

    calls cgi.param("foo") in scalar context (unlike my wimpy scalar op from last night). Array
    context is the default.

    With non-function operands, scalar behaves like the perl version (eg: no-op for scalar, size for
    arrays, etc).

    * supports the special op "ref" that behaves like the perl ref. If applied to a function the
    function is not called. Eg:

        cgi.param("foo").ref

    does *not* call cgi.param and evaluates to "CODE". Similarly, HASH.ref, ARRAY.ref return what
    you expect.

    * adds a new scalar and list op called "array" that is a no-op for arrays and promotes scalars
    to one-element arrays.

    * allows scalar ops to be applied to arrays and hashes in place, eg: ARRAY.repeat(3) repeats
    each element in place.

    * allows list ops to be applied to scalars by promoting the scalars to one-element arrays (like
    an implicit "array"). So you can do things like SCALAR.size, SCALAR.join and get a useful
    result.

    This also means you can now use x.0 to safely get the first element whether x is an array or
    scalar.

    The new Stash.pm passes the TT2.02 test suite. But I haven't tested the new features very much.
    One nagging implementation problem is that the "scalar" and "ref" ops have higher precedence
    than user variable names.

AUTHOR
    Andy Wardley <abw AT wardley.org>

    <http://wardley.org/>

VERSION
    1.63, distributed as part of the Template Toolkit version 2.19, released on 27 April 2007.

COPYRIGHT
      Copyright (C) 1996-2007 Andy Wardley.  All Rights Reserved.

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

SEE ALSO
    Template::Stash