[cgiapp] Re: Comments requested

[Mark Stosberg <suppressed>]

On 2003-10-17, Clint Moore <suppressed> wrote:
>
> 	Several months ago, I wrote about how I was using pluggable mini 
> applications with CGI::App in an application I was developing.  Since 
> then i have decided to write, if for no one besides myself, a module to 
> handle this.  I welcome any comments and suggestions.
>
> 	There is one glaring issue that I need to figure out an elegant 
> solution for and that is how to get a form to the main application from 
> a plugin.  At the moment I am using a terribly ugly hack (see 
> 'plugin_button' below) to demonstrate the module.  Any comments on this 
> are certainly welcome.

I like that with your solution could just "drop in" in a module and it
could work. 

I'll add to the conversation a couple of techniques I've used to
implement "plug-ins" in CGI::App.

The first method I believe is known as a "mix-in method". This is what
CGI::Application::ValidateRM does:

Just "use CGI::Application::ValidateRM" and voila, you have a a couple
of new methods available.


The second method I'ved used was less flexible. It was to simply create a
sub-class, add some run modes, and then call the setup routine in the
SUPER class to make all the original run modes available.

Here's what a code snippet for that looked like: 

	package Cascade::BookSearch;
	use base Cascade;

	sub setup {
		my $self = shift;

		$self->run_modes([qw/book_search/]);
		return $self->SUPER::setup();
	}

	sub book_search {
		my $self = shift;
		# ... beefy code goes here...
	}


The limitation above is that you are tied to specific super-class.
There's probably an easy way to address that, but I'm not seeing it
now.

I think I find the "mix-in" method the most intuitive way to handle
plug-in methods generically.

	Mark

-- 
http://mark.stosberg.com/ 


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