code

 my $value = $pt->code();
 $pt->code( 'my_time_parser' );
 $pt->code( 'Some::Package::time_parser' );
 $pt->code( sub { ... } );
 $pt->code( sub { ... }, 'name_of_record' );

This method acts as both accessor and mutator for the "code" attribute, which contains the code to do the parsing. Without arguments it is an accessor, returning the value of the attribute.

If called with arguments, it sets the value of the attribute. You can pass either the name of the subroutine that implements the parse, or a reference to it. An unqualified name is resolved in the caller's name space.

In general the accessor returns what was set. But if you pass a name of record after the code reference (as in the last example above), that name of record will be returned as the value of the attribute.

The code reference will be called with the following arguments:

the invocant

That is, it will be called as though it was a method of this class.

a reference to an options hash

If the code has the "Verb()" attribute (as it will if it comes from a code macro), the options will be as parsed by Getopt::Long using the value of the "Verb()" attribute as the option specification.

If the code does not have the "Verb()" attribute, the reference will be to an empty hash.

the name of the action to to perform

Supported values are discussed below. Any other values are unsupported and reserved by the author.

the arguments for the action, if any.

The arguments depend on the action, as follows:

The code reference will be called when the time zone is set (to give the code a chance to reject it), and to request a parse.

In the first case the arguments are "( $self, tz => $zone )", where $self is a reference to this object, and $zone is the prospective new time zone. When called this way the code would reject the zone by calling "$self->wail( $some_message )". The code accepts the zone by simply returning.

In the second case the arguments are "( $self, parse =" $string >, where $self is as before, and $string is the string to be parsed. If the parse is successful, the code must return the epoch time. If the parse fails, the code must call "wail()" as above.

You do not need to specify 'code' as an argument to "new()", though you can. But you must have set the code before calling inherited method parse_time_absolute().