12.6. Making a Method Work with Either Classes or InstancesAll we need to fix this is a way to detect whether the method is called on a class or an instance. The most straightforward way to find out is with the ref operator. This operator returns a string (the class name) when used on a blessed reference, and undef when used on a string (like a class name). We modify the name method first to notice the change: sub name { my $either = shift; ref $either ? $$either # it's an instance, return name : "an unnamed $either"; # it's a class, return generic } Here the ?: operator selects either the dereference or a derived string. Now we can use it with either an instance or a class. Note that we changed the first parameter holder to $either to show that it is intentional: print Horse->name, "\n"; # prints "an unnamed Horse\n" my $tv_horse = Horse->named('Mr. Ed'); print $tv_horse->name, "\n"; # prints "Mr. Ed.\n" and now we'll fix speak to use this: sub speak { my $either = shift; print $either->name, ' goes ', $either->sound, "\n"; } Since sound already worked with either a class or an instance, we're done! |