12 our $VERSION = '5.59';
14 # Carp does this now for us, so we can finally live w/o Carp
15 #$Carp::Internal{Exporter} = 1;
18 require Exporter::Heavy;
19 # Unfortunately, this does not work if the caller is aliased as *name = \&foo
20 # Thus the need to create a lot of identical subroutines
21 my $c = (caller(1))[3];
23 \&{"Exporter::Heavy::heavy_$c"};
32 my $callpkg = caller($ExportLevel);
34 if ($pkg eq "Exporter" and @_ and $_[0] eq "import") {
35 *{$callpkg."::import"} = \&import;
39 # We *need* to treat @{"$pkg\::EXPORT_FAIL"} since Carp uses it :-(
40 my($exports, $fail) = (\@{"$pkg\::EXPORT"}, \@{"$pkg\::EXPORT_FAIL"});
41 return export $pkg, $callpkg, @_
42 if $Verbose or $Debug or @$fail > 1;
43 my $export_cache = ($Cache{$pkg} ||= {});
44 my $args = @_ or @_ = @$exports;
47 if ($args and not %$export_cache) {
48 s/^&//, $export_cache->{$_} = 1
49 foreach (@$exports, @{"$pkg\::EXPORT_OK"});
52 # Try very hard not to use {} and hence have to enter scope on the foreach
53 # We bomb out of the loop with last as soon as heavy is set.
55 ($heavy = (/\W/ or $args and not exists $export_cache->{$_}
56 or @$fail and $_ eq $fail->[0])) and last
59 ($heavy = /\W/) and last
62 return export $pkg, $callpkg, ($args ? @_ : ()) if $heavy;
63 local $SIG{__WARN__} =
64 sub {require Carp; &Carp::carp};
65 # shortcut for the common case of no type character
66 *{"$callpkg\::$_"} = \&{"$pkg\::$_"} foreach @_;
76 # Unfortunately, caller(1)[3] "does not work" if the caller is aliased as
77 # *name = \&foo. Thus the need to create a lot of identical subroutines
78 # Otherwise we could have aliased them to export().
101 Exporter - Implements default import method for modules
105 In module YourModule.pm:
110 @EXPORT_OK = qw(munge frobnicate); # symbols to export on request
115 use Exporter 'import'; # gives you Exporter's import() method directly
116 @EXPORT_OK = qw(munge frobnicate); # symbols to export on request
118 In other files which wish to use YourModule:
120 use ModuleName qw(frobnicate); # import listed symbols
121 frobnicate ($left, $right) # calls YourModule::frobnicate
125 The Exporter module implements an C<import> method which allows a module
126 to export functions and variables to its users' namespaces. Many modules
127 use Exporter rather than implementing their own C<import> method because
128 Exporter provides a highly flexible interface, with an implementation optimised
131 Perl automatically calls the C<import> method when processing a
132 C<use> statement for a module. Modules and C<use> are documented
133 in L<perlfunc> and L<perlmod>. Understanding the concept of
134 modules and how the C<use> statement operates is important to
135 understanding the Exporter.
139 The arrays C<@EXPORT> and C<@EXPORT_OK> in a module hold lists of
140 symbols that are going to be exported into the users name space by
141 default, or which they can request to be exported, respectively. The
142 symbols can represent functions, scalars, arrays, hashes, or typeglobs.
143 The symbols must be given by full name with the exception that the
144 ampersand in front of a function is optional, e.g.
146 @EXPORT = qw(afunc $scalar @array); # afunc is a function
147 @EXPORT_OK = qw(&bfunc %hash *typeglob); # explicit prefix on &bfunc
149 If you are only exporting function names it is recommended to omit the
150 ampersand, as the implementation is faster this way.
152 =head2 Selecting What To Export
154 Do B<not> export method names!
156 Do B<not> export anything else by default without a good reason!
158 Exports pollute the namespace of the module user. If you must export
159 try to use @EXPORT_OK in preference to @EXPORT and avoid short or
160 common symbol names to reduce the risk of name clashes.
162 Generally anything not exported is still accessible from outside the
163 module using the ModuleName::item_name (or $blessed_ref-E<gt>method)
164 syntax. By convention you can use a leading underscore on names to
165 informally indicate that they are 'internal' and not for public use.
167 (It is actually possible to get private functions by saying:
169 my $subref = sub { ... };
170 $subref->(@args); # Call it as a function
171 $obj->$subref(@args); # Use it as a method
173 However if you use them for methods it is up to you to figure out
174 how to make inheritance work.)
176 As a general rule, if the module is trying to be object oriented
177 then export nothing. If it's just a collection of functions then
178 @EXPORT_OK anything but use @EXPORT with caution. For function and
179 method names use barewords in preference to names prefixed with
180 ampersands for the export lists.
182 Other module design guidelines can be found in L<perlmod>.
186 In other files which wish to use your module there are three basic ways for
187 them to load your module and import its symbols:
191 =item C<use ModuleName;>
193 This imports all the symbols from ModuleName's @EXPORT into the namespace
194 of the C<use> statement.
196 =item C<use ModuleName ();>
198 This causes perl to load your module but does not import any symbols.
200 =item C<use ModuleName qw(...);>
202 This imports only the symbols listed by the caller into their namespace.
203 All listed symbols must be in your @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK, else an error
204 occurs. The advanced export features of Exporter are accessed like this,
205 but with list entries that are syntactically distinct from symbol names.
209 Unless you want to use its advanced features, this is probably all you
210 need to know to use Exporter.
212 =head1 Advanced features
214 =head2 Specialised Import Lists
216 If any of the entries in an import list begins with !, : or / then
217 the list is treated as a series of specifications which either add to
218 or delete from the list of names to import. They are processed left to
219 right. Specifications are in the form:
221 [!]name This name only
222 [!]:DEFAULT All names in @EXPORT
223 [!]:tag All names in $EXPORT_TAGS{tag} anonymous list
224 [!]/pattern/ All names in @EXPORT and @EXPORT_OK which match
226 A leading ! indicates that matching names should be deleted from the
227 list of names to import. If the first specification is a deletion it
228 is treated as though preceded by :DEFAULT. If you just want to import
229 extra names in addition to the default set you will still need to
230 include :DEFAULT explicitly.
232 e.g., Module.pm defines:
234 @EXPORT = qw(A1 A2 A3 A4 A5);
235 @EXPORT_OK = qw(B1 B2 B3 B4 B5);
236 %EXPORT_TAGS = (T1 => [qw(A1 A2 B1 B2)], T2 => [qw(A1 A2 B3 B4)]);
238 Note that you cannot use tags in @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK.
239 Names in EXPORT_TAGS must also appear in @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK.
241 An application using Module can say something like:
243 use Module qw(:DEFAULT :T2 !B3 A3);
245 Other examples include:
247 use Socket qw(!/^[AP]F_/ !SOMAXCONN !SOL_SOCKET);
248 use POSIX qw(:errno_h :termios_h !TCSADRAIN !/^EXIT/);
250 Remember that most patterns (using //) will need to be anchored
251 with a leading ^, e.g., C</^EXIT/> rather than C</EXIT/>.
253 You can say C<BEGIN { $Exporter::Verbose=1 }> to see how the
254 specifications are being processed and what is actually being imported
257 =head2 Exporting without using Exporter's import method
259 Exporter has a special method, 'export_to_level' which is used in situations
260 where you can't directly call Exporter's import method. The export_to_level
263 MyPackage->export_to_level($where_to_export, $package, @what_to_export);
265 where $where_to_export is an integer telling how far up the calling stack
266 to export your symbols, and @what_to_export is an array telling what
267 symbols *to* export (usually this is @_). The $package argument is
270 For example, suppose that you have a module, A, which already has an
276 @EXPORT_OK = qw ($b);
280 $A::b = 1; # not a very useful import method
283 and you want to Export symbol $A::b back to the module that called
284 package A. Since Exporter relies on the import method to work, via
285 inheritance, as it stands Exporter::import() will never get called.
286 Instead, say the following:
290 @EXPORT_OK = qw ($b);
295 A->export_to_level(1, @_);
298 This will export the symbols one level 'above' the current package - ie: to
299 the program or module that used package A.
301 Note: Be careful not to modify C<@_> at all before you call export_to_level
302 - or people using your package will get very unexplained results!
304 =head2 Exporting without inheriting from Exporter
306 By including Exporter in your @ISA you inherit an Exporter's import() method
307 but you also inherit several other helper methods which you probably don't
308 want. To avoid this you can do
311 use Exporter qw( import );
313 which will export Exporter's own import() method into YourModule.
314 Everything will work as before but you won't need to include Exporter in
317 =head2 Module Version Checking
319 The Exporter module will convert an attempt to import a number from a
320 module into a call to $module_name-E<gt>require_version($value). This can
321 be used to validate that the version of the module being used is
322 greater than or equal to the required version.
324 The Exporter module supplies a default require_version method which
325 checks the value of $VERSION in the exporting module.
327 Since the default require_version method treats the $VERSION number as
328 a simple numeric value it will regard version 1.10 as lower than
329 1.9. For this reason it is strongly recommended that you use numbers
330 with at least two decimal places, e.g., 1.09.
332 =head2 Managing Unknown Symbols
334 In some situations you may want to prevent certain symbols from being
335 exported. Typically this applies to extensions which have functions
336 or constants that may not exist on some systems.
338 The names of any symbols that cannot be exported should be listed
339 in the C<@EXPORT_FAIL> array.
341 If a module attempts to import any of these symbols the Exporter
342 will give the module an opportunity to handle the situation before
343 generating an error. The Exporter will call an export_fail method
344 with a list of the failed symbols:
346 @failed_symbols = $module_name->export_fail(@failed_symbols);
348 If the export_fail method returns an empty list then no error is
349 recorded and all the requested symbols are exported. If the returned
350 list is not empty then an error is generated for each symbol and the
351 export fails. The Exporter provides a default export_fail method which
352 simply returns the list unchanged.
354 Uses for the export_fail method include giving better error messages
355 for some symbols and performing lazy architectural checks (put more
356 symbols into @EXPORT_FAIL by default and then take them out if someone
357 actually tries to use them and an expensive check shows that they are
358 usable on that platform).
360 =head2 Tag Handling Utility Functions
362 Since the symbols listed within %EXPORT_TAGS must also appear in either
363 @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK, two utility functions are provided which allow
364 you to easily add tagged sets of symbols to @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK:
366 %EXPORT_TAGS = (foo => [qw(aa bb cc)], bar => [qw(aa cc dd)]);
368 Exporter::export_tags('foo'); # add aa, bb and cc to @EXPORT
369 Exporter::export_ok_tags('bar'); # add aa, cc and dd to @EXPORT_OK
371 Any names which are not tags are added to @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK
372 unchanged but will trigger a warning (with C<-w>) to avoid misspelt tags
373 names being silently added to @EXPORT or @EXPORT_OK. Future versions
374 may make this a fatal error.
376 =head2 Generating combined tags
378 If several symbol categories exist in %EXPORT_TAGS, it's usually
379 useful to create the utility ":all" to simplify "use" statements.
381 The simplest way to do this is:
383 %EXPORT_TAGS = (foo => [qw(aa bb cc)], bar => [qw(aa cc dd)]);
385 # add all the other ":class" tags to the ":all" class,
386 # deleting duplicates
390 push @{$EXPORT_TAGS{all}},
391 grep {!$seen{$_}++} @{$EXPORT_TAGS{$_}} foreach keys %EXPORT_TAGS;
394 CGI.pm creates an ":all" tag which contains some (but not really
395 all) of its categories. That could be done with one small
398 # add some of the other ":class" tags to the ":all" class,
399 # deleting duplicates
403 push @{$EXPORT_TAGS{all}},
404 grep {!$seen{$_}++} @{$EXPORT_TAGS{$_}}
405 foreach qw/html2 html3 netscape form cgi internal/;
408 Note that the tag names in %EXPORT_TAGS don't have the leading ':'.
410 =head2 C<AUTOLOAD>ed Constants
412 Many modules make use of C<AUTOLOAD>ing for constant subroutines to
413 avoid having to compile and waste memory on rarely used values (see
414 L<perlsub> for details on constant subroutines). Calls to such
415 constant subroutines are not optimized away at compile time because
416 they can't be checked at compile time for constancy.
418 Even if a prototype is available at compile time, the body of the
419 subroutine is not (it hasn't been C<AUTOLOAD>ed yet). perl needs to
420 examine both the C<()> prototype and the body of a subroutine at
421 compile time to detect that it can safely replace calls to that
422 subroutine with the constant value.
424 A workaround for this is to call the constants once in a C<BEGIN> block:
430 foo( SO_LINGER ); ## SO_LINGER NOT optimized away; called at runtime
432 foo( SO_LINGER ); ## SO_LINGER optimized away at compile time.
434 This forces the C<AUTOLOAD> for C<SO_LINGER> to take place before
435 SO_LINGER is encountered later in C<My> package.
437 If you are writing a package that C<AUTOLOAD>s, consider forcing
438 an C<AUTOLOAD> for any constants explicitly imported by other packages
439 or which are usually used when your package is C<use>d.