Data::...ecoder(3pm)

💖 Data::TableReader::Decoder — the 3pm man page, bestie edition 💖

Okay so you found your way to Data::TableReader::Decoder(3pm), which lives in the User Contributed Perl Documentation corner of the perl universe. Pull up a chair, grab a strawberry 🍓, and let's get into it.

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✨ NAME ✨

Data::TableReader::Decoder — it's the base class for table decoders 👑

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🌸 VERSION 🌸

version 0.021 — yes, that's the one, no cap.

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So here's the tea. This is an abstract base class, which is fancy-speak for "it describes the API, it does not do the actual work, that's on the subclasses, bestie." It's giving blueprint energy. 📐

A decoder's whole job — its one job, its main character moment — is to iterate table rows of a file that's holding tabular data. That's it. That's the assignment.

And here's the important part: if a file hands you multiple tables of data (think worksheets, or <TABLE> tags 👀), then the decoder should also support the next_dataset method. Multiple tables means multiple datasets means multiple moments, and the decoder has to be ready for all of them. 💅

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🎀 ATTRIBUTES 🎀

filename

Set by TableReader. Useful for logging. That's literally it, and honestly? A queen. 📝✨

file_handle

Set by TableReader. This is what the iterator should parse. Like, the actual thing the iterator reads from. Don't sleep on it. 🔥

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💜 METHODS 💜

iterator

Okay so this one is a must — it must be implemented by the subclass, no skipping, no shortcuts, periodt. 🙅

It returns an instance of Data::TableReader::Iterator.

Now here's the vibe: the iterator should return an arrayref every single time it gets called. And it should accept one optional argument — a slice that's needed from the record. 🍰

And why does that matter? Because all decoder iterators return arrayrefs, so that slice should be an arrayref of column indices, equivalent to this exact perl syntax right here:

@row[@$slice]

Copy it, love it, use it. 💖

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🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

Michael Conrad <mike@nrdvana.net> — iconic behavior, honestly. 🫶

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👑 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 👑

This software is copyright (c) 2024 by Michael Conrad.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself. Slay. 💅

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And that's the whole page, bestie — no notes. This was Data::...ecoder(3pm) from perl v5.38.2, dated 2024-06-21. Mwah, take care of yourself, hydrate, and go iterate some rows. 🧚💜🌈