Eric Wilhelm wrote:
# from Christopher J. Madsen
# on Sunday 16 March 2008 23:37:
I was saying that if a pre hook returns anything other than 'done' or
'continue', then the plugin manager reports "Invalid return value
from ...". In other words, it's a bug in the plugin, which the
plugin manager will catch and report.
I'm still not convinced that the return values have enough significance
to warrant that kind of stricture. At least, not for ACTION_* methods.
For all other methods, the continue/done return really seems like it
would get in the way, but I still don't have a clear picture of how
pre_/post_ hooks for regular methods would be used (and/or made to
work.)
There are two separate concepts here: the return value from the hook
function, and the return value from the method being hooked.
A pre hook can do two different things:
1. It can take over for the method (preventing the normal method from
being called. This is the 'done' case. It's equivalent to a subclass
doing:
sub method { ...do stuff...; return $value }
2. It can do stuff (possibly munging @_) and then allow the normal
method to operate. This is the 'continue' case. It's equivalent to a
subclass doing:
sub method { ...do stuff...; (shift @_)->SUPER::method(@_) }
Obviously, you don't have to use the return value to indicate this;
that's just what I picked for my initial design. But you need to have
some way of indicating whether the normal method should be called.
For example, in pre_ACTION_test, this is the difference between "I want
to do some stuff before the tests begin" ('continue') and "I want to do
all the testing myself" ('done').
Post hooks don't get this choice, because they operate after the normal
method has been called.
--
Chris Madsen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-------------------- http://www.cjmweb.net --------------------
