NAME

Acme::Damn - 'Unbless' Perl objects.

SYNOPSIS

  use Acme::Damn;

  my $ref = ... some reference ...
  my $obj = bless $ref , 'Some::Class';
  
  ... do something with your object ...

     $ref = damn $obj;   # recover the original reference (unblessed)

  ... neither $ref nor $obj are Some::Class objects ...

DESCRIPTION

Acme::Damn provides a single routine, damn(), which takes a blessed reference (a Perl object), and unblesses it, to return the original reference.

EXPORT

By default, Acme::Damn exports the method damn() into the current namespace. Aliases for damn() (see below) may be imported upon request.

Methods

damn object

damn() accepts a single blessed reference as its argument, and returns that reference unblessed. If object is not a blessed reference, then damn() will "die" with an error.

bless reference

bless reference [ , package ]

bless reference [ , undef ]

Optionally, Acme::Damn will modify the behaviour of "bless" to allow the passing of an explicit "undef" as the target package to invoke damn():

    use Acme::Damn  qw( bless );

    my  $obj = ... some blessed reference ...;

    # the following statements are equivalent
    my  $ref = bless $obj , undef;
    my  $ref = damn $obj;

NOTE: The modification of "bless" is lexically scoped to the current package, and is not global.

Not everyone likes to damn the same way or in the same language, so Acme::Damn offers the ability to specify any alias on import, provided that alias is a valid Perl subroutine name (i.e. all characters match "\w").

  use Acme::Damn qw( unbless );
  use Acme::Damn qw( foo );
  use Acme::Damn qw( unblessthyself );
  use Acme::Damn qw( recant );

Version 0.02 supported a defined list of aliases, and this has been replaced in v0.03 by the ability to import any alias for "damn()".

WARNING

Just as "bless" doesn't call an object's initialisation code, "damn" doesn't invoke an object's "DESTROY" method. For objects that need to be "DESTROY"ed, either don't "damn" them, or call "DESTROY" before judgement is passed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Claes Jacobsson <claes@surfar.nu> for suggesting the use of aliases, and Bo Lindbergh <blgl@cpan.org> for the suggested modification of "bless".

AUTHOR

Ian Brayshaw, <ian@onemore.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.