perl-struct-dumb

'Struct::Dumb' creates record-like structure types, similar to the 'struct' keyword in C, C++ or C#, or 'Record' in Pascal. An invocation of this module will create a construction function which returns new object references with the given field values. These references all respond to lvalue methods that access or modify the values stored. It's specifically and intentionally not meant to be an object class. You cannot subclass it. You cannot provide additional methods. You cannot apply roles or mixins or metaclasses or traits or antlers or whatever else is in fashion this week. On the other hand, it is tiny, creates cheap lightweight array-backed structures, uses nothing outside of core. It's intended simply to be a slightly nicer way to store data structures, where otherwise you might be tempted to abuse a hash, complete with the risk of typoing key names. The constructor will 'croak' if passed the wrong number of arguments, as will attempts to refer to fields that don't exist. Accessor-mutators will 'croak' if invoked with arguments. (This helps detect likely bugs such as accidentally passing in the new value as an argument, or attempting to invoke a stored 'CODE' reference by passing argument values directly to the accessor.) $ perl -E 'use Struct::Dumb; struct Point => [qw( x y )]; Point(30)' usage: main::Point($x, $y) at -e line 1 $ perl -E 'use Struct::Dumb; struct Point => [qw( x y )]; Point(10,20)->z' main::Point does not have a 'z' field at -e line 1 $ perl -E 'use Struct::Dumb; struct Point => [qw( x y )]; Point(1,2)->x(3)' main::Point->x invoked with arguments at -e line 1. Objects in this class are (currently) backed by an ARRAY reference store, though this is an internal implementation detail and should not be relied on by using code. Attempting to dereference the object as an ARRAY will throw an exception. _Note_: That on development perls that support 'use feature 'class'', this is used instead of a blessed ARRAY reference. This implementation choice should be transparent to the end-user, as all the same features are supported.