Interesting code you have there - i can't tell if it's a hack on the decorator pattern or maybe even the state pattern. At any rate, i think i see what the goal is:

You instantiate the First class and test to see if it does the job, if it doesn't, revert to the Second class. This is cool, but it's a maintenance nightmare should you decide to add a Third, or a Fourth, ... all the way to the Nth possible class.

I rewrote your code and added some tests - here is the solution domain:

0-5: fail
6-9: second handles
10-: first handles
[download]

And the code:

use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

package First;

sub new { 
   my $class = shift;
   my $self  = {
      foo => 'bar'
   };
   return bless $self, $class;
}

sub test {
   my $self = shift;
   my $arg  = shift || 10;
   return ($arg > 9) ? "okay" : bless $self, 'Second';
}

package Second;

sub new { 
   my $class = shift;
   my $self  = {
      foo => 'qux'
   };
   return bless $self, $class;
}

sub test {
   my $self = shift;
   my $arg  = shift || 4;
   return ($arg > 5) ? "okay" : undef;
}

package main;

my $arg = shift || 10;
my $t   = First->new();

if (ref $t->test($arg)) {
   warn "first failed, trying second...";
   die "second failed" unless $t->test($arg);
}

print (ref $t, " passed\n");

print Dumper $t;
[download]

Try it out. Notice the very last expression which outputs the Dump of the object - notice how even though it might belong to package First or Second - $self is the same. That may or may not be a problem for you, because the technique to change $t from First to Second only changes it's package, not it's attributes.

In conclusion, the only two problems i see are

1. extensibility - need to generalize First, Second, Third, etc.
2. not inheriting attributes from oringal class - but this might your 'feature' ...

Three cheers for flexiblity!

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
F--F--F--F--F--F--F--F--
(the triplet paradiddle)

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.