Tie::ToObject(3)

💖 Tie::ToObject(3) — the perl manual page, bestie edition 💖

okay so this is Tie::ToObject(3), a little page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation section of the perl man pages. yes, the whole thing is about one tiny module and honestly? it's iconic for it. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

Tie::ToObject — literally just tie to an existing object. that's it. that's the whole gig. slay 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

here's the whole vibe in code, no cap:

        use Tie::ToObject;

        my $stolen = tied(%something);

        tie %something_else, 'Tie::ToObject', $stolen;

see what's happening? you grab the object that's already hiding behind %something with tied, then you tie %something_else to that exact same object. zero cloning, zero drama. 🎀

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so like, tie (as documented in perldoc) does let you tie to an arbitrary object — but here's the catch: the class in question has to actually support that inside its own implementation of TIEHASH, TIEARRAY, or whatever the relevant one is. not every class is out here doing the work, y'know? 😭

this class swoops in and provides a very chill tie constructor that simply returns the object it was given as its first argument. that's it. no notes. 💀

and the point of that? it means you avoid all the side effects of calling $object->TIEHASH. yeah. none of that. avoided. periodt. ✨

where's it used, you ask? it's used in Data::Visitor in order to tie a variable to an already existing object. it's also useful for cloning — like when you want to clone the internal state object instead of going through the tie interface for that variable. main character use case tbh 👑

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🌈 VERSION CONTROL 🌈

this module is maintained using Darcs. yes, Darcs. vintage. 💜 you can get the latest version from http://nothingmuch.woobling.org/code, and you use darcs send to commit changes. that's the whole workflow, bestie 🧚

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⭐ AUTHOR ⭐

Yuval Kogman <nothingmuch@woobling.org> — the legend behind this whole thing 🫶

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👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

here it is, verbatim, because legal stuff is not the place for creative liberties:

        Copyright (c) 2008 Yuval Kogman. All rights reserved
        This program is free software; you can redistribute
        it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

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so yeah, that's Tie::ToObject — tiny module, huge "just return the object" energy. go tie something to something else, you got this 💖✨

this page ships with perl v5.42.0 and it's dated 2011-07-14 — a certified classic that's been sitting pretty in the manual since before some of us could read. respect the elders 🎀 bye bestie! 🌸🦋