Encode::Encoder

Encode::Encoder(3)     Perl Programmers Reference Guide     Encode::Encoder(3)



NAME
       Encode::Encoder -- Object Oriented Encoder

SYNOPSIS
         use Encode::Encoder;
         # Encode::encode("ISO-8859-1", $data);
         Encode::Encoder->new($data)->iso_8859_1; # OOP way
         # shortcut
         use Encode::Encoder qw(encoder);
         encoder($data)->iso_8859_1;
         # you can stack them!
         encoder($data)->iso_8859_1->base64;  # provided base64() is defined
         # you can use it as a decoder as well
         encoder($base64)->bytes('base64')->latin1;
         # stringified
         print encoder($data)->utf8->latin1;  # prints the string in latin1
         # numified
         encoder("\x{abcd}\x{ef}g")->utf8 == 6; # true. bytes::length($data)

ABSTRACT
       Encode::Encoder allows you to use Encode in an object-oriented style.
       This is not only more intuitive than a functional approach, but also
       handier when you want to stack encodings.  Suppose you want your UTF-8
       string converted to Latin1 then Base64: you can simply say

         my $base64 = encoder($utf8)->latin1->base64;

       instead of

         my $latin1 = encode("latin1", $utf8);
         my $base64 = encode_base64($utf8);

       or the lazier and more convoluted

         my $base64 = encode_base64(encode("latin1", $utf8));

Description
       Here is how to use this module.

       o   There are at least two instance variables stored in a hash refer-
           ence, {data} and {encoding}.

       o   When there is no method, it takes the method name as the name of
           the encoding and encodes the instance data with encoding.  If suc-
           cessful, the instance encoding is set accordingly.

       o   You can retrieve the result via ->data but usually you don't have
           to because the stringify operator ("") is overridden to do exactly
           that.

       Predefined Methods

       This module predefines the methods below:

       $e = Encode::Encoder->new([$data, $encoding]);
           returns an encoder object.  Its data is initialized with $data if
           present, and its encoding is set to $encoding if present.

           When $encoding is omitted, it defaults to utf8 if $data is already
           in utf8 or "" (empty string) otherwise.

       encoder()
           is an alias of Encode::Encoder->new().  This one is exported on
           demand.

       $e->data([$data])
           When $data is present, sets the instance data to $data and returns
           the object itself.  Otherwise, the current instance data is
           returned.

       $e->encoding([$encoding])
           When $encoding is present, sets the instance encoding to $encoding
           and returns the object itself.  Otherwise, the current instance
           encoding is returned.

       $e->bytes([$encoding])
           decodes instance data from $encoding, or the instance encoding if
           omitted.  If the conversion is successful, the instance encoding
           will be set to "".

           The name bytes was deliberately picked to avoid namespace tainting
           -- this module may be used as a base class so method names that
           appear in Encode::Encoding are avoided.

       Example: base64 transcoder

       This module is designed to work with Encode::Encoding.  To make the
       Base64 transcoder example above really work, you could write a module
       like this:

         package Encode::Base64;
         use base 'Encode::Encoding';
         __PACKAGE__->Define('base64');
         use MIME::Base64;
         sub encode{
             my ($obj, $data) = @_;
             return encode_base64($data);
         }
         sub decode{
             my ($obj, $data) = @_;
             return decode_base64($data);
         }
         1;
         __END__

       And your caller module would be something like this:

         use Encode::Encoder;
         use Encode::Base64;

         # now you can really do the following

         encoder($data)->iso_8859_1->base64;
         encoder($base64)->bytes('base64')->latin1;

       Operator Overloading

       This module overloads two operators, stringify ("") and numify (0+).

       Stringify dumps the data inside the object.

       Numify returns the number of bytes in the instance data.

       They come in handy when you want to print or find the size of data.

SEE ALSO
       Encode, Encode::Encoding



perl v5.8.6                       2001-09-21                Encode::Encoder(3)