TITLE

Objects : Rationalizing ref, attribute::reftype, and builtin:blessed

VERSION

  Maintainer: Damian Conway <damian@conway.org>
  Date: 14 Sep 2000
  Last Modified: 18 Sep 2000
  Mailing List: perl6-language-objects@perl.org
  Number: 224
  Version: 2
  Status: Frozen

ABSTRACT

This RFC proposes that rather than three separate mechanisms (in three separate namespaces) to determine object typing information, Perl 6 simply extend the ref function to return all the necessary information in a list context.

DESCRIPTION

In Perl 5, the class into which an object is blessed is returned by calling ref on a reference to that object. To determine the underlying implementation type of the object, attribute::reftype is used. To determine whether or not a reference refers to a blessed object, <builtin::blessed> is used.

It is proposed that the behaviour of ref be altered in Perl 6 so that in a list context it returns up to two values: the underlying implementation type of the object (always returned), and the class into which the object is blessed (only if the object is blessed).

Thus:

        if (builtin::blessed $ref) {
                $type  = attribute::reftype $ref;
                $class = ref $ref;
        }
        else {
                $type  = ref $ref;
                $class = "<no class>";
        }

        print "Object of type $type, blessed into $class\n";

Would become:

        ($type, $class) = ref($ref);
        $class ||= "<no class>";

        print "Object of type $type, blessed into $class\n";

MIGRATION ISSUES

All existing calls to ref in a list context would have to be translated to scalar ref.

IMPLEMENTATION

Trivial.

REFERENCES

None.