Modules of Formats

Tanalis has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi all,

I'm writing a script that will be generating a large number of similar reports, each of which has its own format header and body.

I'd like to export all of these formats to a dedicated ReportsFormats module, simply to make the script easier to follow and look less cluttered.

I'm after advice and opinions, I guess - is it valid to have a module of formats, how would I go about exporting them (Exporter in the usual way?) and how could I go about avioding the problem of the Perl compiler not finding the variables in the formats because they're not local to the format module itself (though I suppose not using strict is an option there).

Any advice/suggestions would be appreciated. This isn't fundamental .. but I hate cluttered code and for the sheer number of formats we use doing it this way would make it much, much easier to understand and maintain the script.

Thanks in advance
-- Foxcub

Comment on Modules of Formats

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Re: Modules of Formats by robartes (Priest) on Oct 01, 2002 at 09:55 UTC
Hi Foxcub, Section 3.2.41 of the Camel Book seems to imply that you can put formats in modules just like any other thingy. Formats live in their own namespace and can be qualified with package names, so that answers your first question. As to variable scoping, you'll just have to be careful. Lexically scoped variables (`my $variable;`) have to be declared before the format (so before the `use ReportFormats;` in your case, while dynamically scoped (`local $variable;`) stuff just has to be declared in the block that calls the write() using the format. As usual, more information can be found in perlform. CU Robartes-	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Modules of Formats by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Oct 01, 2002 at 10:09 UTC
I have too little experience with formats to answer your question directly, but I wonder if maybe you would like to switch to a tool like Template-Toolkit 2 instead of using formats? Managing a library of templates is pretty trivial, and in my experience you tend to modularize code better when working with a template engine - data gets munged and collected first, then passed to the template, with the two separate steps really separated. On-the-fly generation of output tends to get ugly. Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply]
Re: Modules of Formats by Jaap (Curate) on Oct 01, 2002 at 09:47 UTC
and how could I go about avioding the problem of the Perl compiler not finding the variables in the formats because they're not local to the format module itself Take a look at other modules to see how other people solved those problems. Most variables that you use globally in your module are stored like this: $self->{'variable'} = 'value';	[reply]
Re: Modules of Formats by broquaint (Abbot) on Oct 01, 2002 at 11:00 UTC
I think the only real problem that you might encounter is copying the actual formats about. The problem is that there's no way of directly copying them unlike the other data types e.g `format foo = . { package mypkg; form_foo = main::foo; form_ref = form_foo{FORMAT}; } use Devel::Peek; Dump(main::foo); Dump(mypkg::form_foo); Dump(mypkg::form_ref); __output__ SV = PVGV(0x80f9c78) at 0x8100de8 ... FORM = 0x80fd4e4 SV = PVGV(0x80f9dc0) at 0x8100e24 ... FORM = 0x80fd4e4 SV = PVGV(0x8101820) at 0x8100e3c ... FORM = 0x0` [download] So you'll have to end up exporting entire globs into the given packages, which isn't ideal. HTH `_________ broquaint` update*: changed `FORM` to `FORMAT`	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Modules of Formats by Anonymous Monk on Nov 11, 2012 at 14:27 UTC
In the year 2012-11-11 with the perl v5.12.2/v5.14.1 it does work `$ perl fooformat.pl 2>&1 \|grep FORM FORM = 0x99aa4c FORM = 0x99aa4c FORM = 0x99aa4c` [download] Still doesn't quite work in v5.8.9 `FORM = 0x182fa08 FORM = 0x182fa08 FORM = 0x0` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Modules of Formats by shotgunefx (Parson) on Oct 01, 2002 at 10:12 UTC
If you create a sub that would take a hash with '$var_in_format' => \$var_to_plug_in. Then you could change the formats to use references to values instead of the actual value. You could bind the args when importing or before using them. What I'm not sure about is the binding of vars within a format. I don't know if they are bound at declaration time to the package or if when they are used. Meaning that if a FORMAT in package Formats references $system and you alias the FORMAT into package main, when used, will it use $main::system or $Formats::system, I suspect the latter but I'm not sure. Should be easy enough to test. An example of a hand rolled import can be found here -Lee "To be civilized is to deny one's nature."	[reply]
Re: Modules of Formats by joe++ (Friar) on Oct 01, 2002 at 11:22 UTC
Maybe you could get away using printf/sprintf instead? This would be really trivial to put in a (OO) Module... `$ perldoc -f sprintf $ man 3 printf` [download] -- Cheers, Joe	[reply] [d/l]


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