Template::Stash(3)             User Contributed Perl Documentation             Template::Stash(3)



NAME
       Template::Stash - Magical storage for template variables

SYNOPSIS
           use Template::Stash;

           my $stash = Template::Stash->new(\%vars);

           # get variable values
           $value = $stash->get($variable);
           $value = $stash->get(\@compound);

           # set variable value
           $stash->set($variable, $value);
           $stash->set(\@compound, $value);

           # default variable value
           $stash->set($variable, $value, 1);
           $stash->set(\@compound, $value, 1);

           # set variable values en masse
           $stash->update(\%new_vars)

           # methods for (de-)localising variables
           $stash = $stash->clone(\%new_vars);
           $stash = $stash->declone();

DESCRIPTION
       The "Template::Stash" module defines an object class which is used to store variable val-
       ues for the runtime use of the template processor.  Variable values are stored internally
       in a hash reference (which itself is blessed to create the object) and are accessible via
       the get() and set() methods.

       Variables may reference hash arrays, lists, subroutines and objects as well as simple val-
       ues.  The stash automatically performs the right magic when dealing with variables, call-
       ing code or object methods, indexing into lists, hashes, etc.

       The stash has clone() and declone() methods which are used by the template processor to
       make temporary copies of the stash for localising changes made to variables.

PUBLIC METHODS
       new(\%params)

       The "new()" constructor method creates and returns a reference to a new "Template::Stash"
       object.

           my $stash = Template::Stash->new();

       A hash reference may be passed to provide variables and values which should be used to
       initialise the stash.

           my $stash = Template::Stash->new({ var1 => 'value1',
                                              var2 => 'value2' });

       get($variable)

       The "get()" method retrieves the variable named by the first parameter.

           $value = $stash->get('var1');

       Dotted compound variables can be retrieved by specifying the variable elements by refer-
       ence to a list.  Each node in the variable occupies two entries in the list.  The first
       gives the name of the variable element, the second is a reference to a list of arguments
       for that element, or 0 if none.

           [% foo.bar(10).baz(20) %]

           $stash->get([ 'foo', 0, 'bar', [ 10 ], 'baz', [ 20 ] ]);

       set($variable, $value, $default)

       The "set()" method sets the variable name in the first parameter to the value specified in
       the second.

           $stash->set('var1', 'value1');

       If the third parameter evaluates to a true value, the variable is set only if it did not
       have a true value before.

           $stash->set('var2', 'default_value', 1);

       Dotted compound variables may be specified as per get() above.

           [% foo.bar = 30 %]

           $stash->set([ 'foo', 0, 'bar', 0 ], 30);

       The magical variable '"IMPORT"' can be specified whose corresponding value should be a
       hash reference.  The contents of the hash array are copied (i.e. imported) into the cur-
       rent namespace.

           # foo.bar = baz, foo.wiz = waz
           $stash->set('foo', { 'bar' => 'baz', 'wiz' => 'waz' });

           # import 'foo' into main namespace: bar = baz, wiz = waz
           $stash->set('IMPORT', $stash->get('foo'));

       clone(\%params)

       The "clone()" method creates and returns a new "Template::Stash" object which represents a
       localised copy of the parent stash. Variables can be freely updated in the cloned stash
       and when declone() is called, the original stash is returned with all its members intact
       and in the same state as they were before "clone()" was called.

       For convenience, a hash of parameters may be passed into "clone()" which is used to update
       any simple variable (i.e. those that don't contain any namespace elements like "foo" and
       "bar" but not "foo.bar") variables while cloning the stash.  For adding and updating com-
       plex variables, the set() method should be used after calling "clone()."  This will cor-
       rectly resolve and/or create any necessary namespace hashes.

       A cloned stash maintains a reference to the stash that it was copied from in its "_PARENT"
       member.

       declone()

       The "declone()" method returns the "_PARENT" reference and can be used to restore the
       state of a stash as described above.

AUTHOR
       Andy Wardley <> <http://wardley.org/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 1996-2007 Andy Wardley.  All Rights Reserved.

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

SEE ALSO
       Template, Template::Context



perl v5.8.8                                 2008-08-07                         Template::Stash(3)