> I've been thinking about this for a couple days. The only problem I see
> is that this doesn't allow me to do this:
>
> $oldpath = $tree->path('L','R') = 'R';
> @document = ($title, $junk, $r->xml_extract) = <STDIN>;
>
> I would still have to use some yeechy combination with tie under your
> RFC.
You can do this easily, even under Perl 5, with the Class::Proxy module:
package Tree;
use Class::Proxy;
sub path {
my ($self, @args) = @_;
# walk down path to find referent:
my $ref = $self;
$ref = $ref->{$_} foreach (@_);
# return a proxy for it,
# with personalized assignment semantics:
return proxy $ref,
STORE => { die unless $_[1] =~ /[LR]/; $_[0] = $_[1] };
}
It isn't yet on the CPAN, but if people want it, I'll bump its priority
and get it out next week.
Damian
