This and other RFCs are available on the web at http://dev.perl.org/rfc/ =head1 TITLE Objects should have builtin stringifying STRING method =head1 VERSION Maintainer: Nathan Wiger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 06 Aug 2000 Last Modified: 14 Sep 2000 Mailing List: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Number: 49 Version: 3 Status: Frozen =head1 ABSTRACT Currently, $ single-whatzitz types in Perl can hold several different things. One of the things that these are commonly used to hold are objects, such as: $q = new CGI; $r = Apache->request; Unfortunately, there is no easy way to tell these are actually objects without lots of annoying ref checks throughout your code. So if you say: print "$q"; This prints out something like this: CGI=HASH(0x80ba4e8) Which isn't very useful. This RFC attempts to fix this by providing builtin special method C<STRING> which is automatically called when an object is "stringified". While this can be accomplished through the use of 'use overload', a more automatic, object-specific method has certain advantages. For more details on this, please see RFC 159. =head1 NOTES ON FREEZE This RFC goes into details on the uses of C<STRING>, but what you really want to read is L<RFC 159: True Polymorphic Objects>, which extends these concepts to other Perl operators and contexts. =head1 DESCRIPTION Currently, there is no way to easily distinguish between these two syntaxes: $scalar = date; # scalar ctime date, same as localtime() $object = date; # date object with accessor functions As such, there is no easy way to have the C<date()> function return both - it must decide what to return within the general scalar context. Damian's excellent RFC 21 on C<want()> addresses several specific cases, several have suggested alternate syntaxes, such as: my Date $object = date; # return object of class 'Date' my tm $object = date; # return object of struct 'tm' However, this doesn't solve the problem, since printing out either of these in a scalar context still results in "garbage". I suggest that objects provide a default method called C<STRING> that determines what they produce in a string context. When stringified, an object would automatically call its C<STRING> function and return the correct value. For example, RFC 48 describes a new C<date()> interface. In a scalar context, it could produce a date object always: $date = date; However, when you went to do anything with it in a string context, it would call the appropriate method: print "$date"; # calls $date->STRING, which in this case would # print out a ctime formatted date string The call to C<$object->STRING> would be a decision made by Perl, similar to the way that C<tie()> works. The object simply has to provide the method; Perl does the rest. This gives us several other really neat side effects. First, we can now return a list of objects and have them act the same as a "regular old list": (@objects) = Class->new; Since, in a stringifying context, each of these objects would call their C<STRING> methods: print "@objects"; # calls $objects[0]->STRING, $objects[1]->STRING, # and so on for the whole array, thus making it # look like a plain old list As such, we no longer have to distinguish between objects and "true" scalars. Objects are automatically converted when appropriate. =head1 IMPLEMENTATION All core objects should be modified to include a C<STRING> function. This function may just be a typeglob pointing to another function, or it may be an actual separate function. Hooks will have to be put in Perl's string context so that if something is an object, then that object's C<STRING> method is called automatically if it exists. =head1 MIGRATION None. This introduces new functionality. =head1 REFERENCES RFC 159: True Polymorphic Objects RFC 21: Replace wantarray with a generic want function RFC 48: Replace localtime() and gmtime() with date() and utcdate() Lots of people on perl6-language for great input, thanks!
