[tpm] Understanding 'use base ...'

[Uri Guttman]

>>>>> "RD" == Rick Delaney <rick at bort.ca> writes:

  RD> On Jul 15 2008, Uri Guttman wrote:

  >> but my point about use base vs. explicit assigning of @ISA stands. there
  >> is no difference between them. use base is cleaner as it loads the
  >> module and sets @ISA for you in one line.

  RD> That would be nice, if true.  But base.pm does things to try to prevent
  RD> ever-growing @ISA for loads of the same module.  So for (not-real-world)
  RD> example,

  RD>     package R;
  RD>     use base qw(Q);

  RD>     package S;
  RD>     use base qw(Q R);

  RD> @S::ISA is ["Q"] instead of ["Q", "R"].  Which in this example would
  RD> mean that no methods from R would be found for an object of type S.
  RD> This is not what most people would expect, I think.

interesting point.

  RD> Your point about multiple inheritance is well taken but some people do
  RD> try to use it and using it along with base.pm can lead to these kinds of
  RD> problems.  There is a much simpler module on CPAN, parent.pm, that acts
  RD> in the way one would expect base.pm to behave.

i generally avoid inheritance anyhow as i think it is not a great
concept. very few things are groupable with inheritance without some
form of compromise or square peg in round hole. but i have done wierder
things such as a module which is loaded and there are both ISA and HASA
relationships with the parent. i can't explain it quickly but it makes
for an unusually elegant solution to an odd problem.

uri

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