Some other options:

1. Mixin/Role/Trait. Gives every object that needs it a config method.
2. Config factory. This is a singleton itself, but it can hand out configuration objects to whoever requests it.

The mixin is conceptually very simple:

package My::ConfigMixin;

use base qw/ Exporter /;
our @EXPORT = qw/ config /;

sub config {
    my $self = shift;
    somehow_get_config(@_);
}
[download]

Which, when used (a simple use My::ConfigMixin; will do), gives your object the method config. Since its first param is your requesting object, you can do all sorts of filtering based on $self (access control, limiting output, etc).

The main issue here is maintaining state. Pretty much your only option is to use package variables in My::ConfigMixin, which can get messy. I'd be interested to learn more about Traits that need state, but sofar I'm a newbie on the subject.

The factory might be a better alternative: it can maintain state on its singleton instance.

---

---

• 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.