| Recipe 3.11: Creating AUTOLOADed Attributes and Methods |
Last Updated: Sep 8, 2003
Status: Draft
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Problem:
You want to intercept calls to undefined methods before an exception is thrown, so that you can dispatch them yourself and avoid the exception.
Solution:
Use the AUTOLOAD method, defined in the base class, Class:
class MyClass {
method foo { ... }
method zap { ... }
method AUTOLOAD {
...
}
}
Discussion:
(Can be filled out more after ApocN)
If an AUTOLOAD method exists for a given object, it will be called whenever an attribute or method of the object cannot be found, instead of the offending (non-existant) method. This allows you to intercept these calls, and do something about it.
AUTOLOAD is defined is interface: it does not require (or accept) a method signature. The standard signature must be used in all cases.
AUTOLOAD methods chain automatically: subclass AUTOLOAD methods are called before their parent AUTOLOAD methods (in the same manner as DESTROY.)
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