NAME Plugin::Tiny - A tiny plugin system for perl VERSION version 0.003 SYNOPSIS #in your core use Plugin::Tiny; my $ps=Plugin::Tiny->new(); #plugin system #load plugin_class (and perhaps phase) from your configuration $ps->register( phase=>$phase, #optional; defaults to last part of plugin class plugin=>$plugin_class, #required role=>$role, #optional arg1=>$arg1, #optional arg2=>$arg2, #optional ); #execute your plugin's methods my $plugin=$ps->get_plugin ($phase); $plugin->do_something(@args); DESCRIPTION Plugin::Tiny is minimalistic plugin system for perl. Each plugin is associated with a keyword (referred to as phase). A limitation of Plugin::Tiny is that each phase can have only one plugin. Bundles of Plugins You can still create bundles of plugins if you hand the plugin system down to the (bundeling) plugin. That way, you can load multiple plugins for one phase (you still need distinct phase labels for each plugin). #in your core use Moose; #optional has 'plugins'=>( is=>'ro', isa=>'Plugin::Tiny', default=>sub{} ); $self->plugins->register( phase=>'Scan', plugin=>'Plugin::ScanBundle', plugins=>$self->plugins, #plugin system ); #in Plugin::ScanBundle has 'plugins'=>(is=>'ro', isa=>'Plugin::Tiny', required=>1); $self->plugins->register (plugin=>'Plugin::Scan1'); $self->plugins->register (plugin=>'Plugin::Scan2'); my $scan1=$self->plugins->get('Scan1'); $scan1->do_something(@args); Require a Plugin Role You may want to do a plugin role for all you plugins, e.g. to standardize an interface etc. ATTRIBUTES debug expects a boolean. Prints additional info to STDOUT. prefix Optional init argument. You can have the prefix added to all plugin classes you register so save some typing and force plugins in your namespace: #without prefix my $ps=Plugin::Tiny->new $ps->register(plugin='Your::App::Plugin::Example1'); $ps->register(plugin='Your::App::Plugin::Example2'); #with prefix my $ps=Plugin::Tiny->new ( prefix=>'Your::App::Plugin::' ); $ps->register(plugin='Example1'); $ps->register(plugin='Example2'); role Optional init argument. A default role to be applied to all plugins. Can be overwritten in register. METHODS $ps->register(phase=>$phase, plugin=>$plugin_class); Registers a plugin, e.g. uses it and makes a new plugin object. Needs a plugin. If you don't specify a phase it, it uses a default phase from the plugin class name. See method "default_phae" for details. Optionally, you can also specify a role which your plugin will have to be able to apply. Specify role=>undef to unset global roles. Remaining key value pairs are passed down to the plugin constructor: $plugin_system->register ( plugin=>$plugin_class, #required phase=>$phase, #optional role=>$role, #optional plugins=>$plugin_system, #optional args=>$more_args, #optional ); A side-effect is that your plugin cannot use 'phase', 'plugin', 'role' as named arguments. Returns the newly created plugin object on success. Confesses on error. $plugin=$ps->get_plugin ($phase); Returns the plugin object associated with the phase. Returns undef if no plugin is registered for this phase. $ps->defaultPhase ($plugin_class); Makes a default phase from a class name. If prefix is defined it use tail minus '::'. Otherwise just last element of the class name. For My::Plugin::Long::Example and prefix='My::Plugin::' this results in 'Long::Example' and without prefix it would be 'Example'. Returns scalar; $class=$ps->get_class ($plugin); returns the plugin's class. A bit like "ref $plugin". Not sure what it returns on error. Todo! $phase=$ps->get_phase ($plugin); returns the plugin's phase. Returns undef on failure. Normally, you should not need this. AUTHOR Maurice Mengel COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE This software is copyright (c) 2012 by Maurice Mengel. This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.