NAME

Mouse::Role - The Mouse Role

VERSION

This document describes Mouse version v2.5.10

SYNOPSIS

    package Comparable;
    use Mouse::Role; # the package is now a Mouse role

    # Declare methods that are required by this role
    requires qw(compare);

    # Define methods this role provides
    sub equals {
        my($self, $other) = @_;
        return $self->compare($other) == 0;
    }

    # and later
    package MyObject;
    use Mouse;
    with qw(Comparable); # Now MyObject can equals()

    sub compare {
        # ...
    }

    my $foo = MyObject->new();
    my $bar = MyObject->new();
    $obj->equals($bar); # yes, it is comparable

DESCRIPTION

This module declares the caller class to be a Mouse role.

The concept of roles is documented in Moose::Manual::Roles. This document serves as API documentation.

EXPORTED FUNCTIONS

Mouse::Role supports all of the functions that Mouse exports, but differs slightly in how some items are handled (see "CAVEATS" below for details).

Mouse::Role also offers two role-specific keywords:

"requires(@method_names)"

Roles can require that certain methods are implemented by any class which "does" the role.

Note that attribute accessors also count as methods for the purposes of satisfying the requirements of a role.

"excludes(@role_names)"

This is exported but not implemented in Mouse.

IMPORT AND UNIMPORT

import

Importing Mouse::Role will give you sugar. "-traits" are also supported.

unimport

Please unimport ("no Mouse::Role") so that if someone calls one of the keywords (such as "has") it will break loudly instead breaking subtly.

CAVEATS

Role support has only a few caveats:

Roles cannot use the "extends" keyword; it will throw an exception for now. The same is true of the "augment" and "inner" keywords (not sure those really make sense for roles). All other Mouse keywords will be deferred so that they can be applied to the consuming class.
Role composition does its best to not be order-sensitive when it comes to conflict resolution and requirements detection. However, it is order-sensitive when it comes to method modifiers. All before/around/after modifiers are included whenever a role is composed into a class, and then applied in the order in which the roles are used. This also means that there is no conflict for before/around/after modifiers.
In most cases, this will be a non-issue; however, it is something to keep in mind when using method modifiers in a role. You should never assume any ordering.