[Israel.pm] Detecting calls for unknown methods in compile time

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi Ronen,

On Thursday 23 September 2010 13:46:55 Ronen Angluster wrote:
> Hello all,
> 

first, a few comments about your code.

> please consider the following code:
> ###################################
> package main;

Always add "use strict;" and "use warnings;". Also see:

http://perl-begin.org/tutorials/bad-elements/

> my $x= main::foo->new();

1. my $x = foo->new(); would be enough here.

2. You should start namespaces with an uppercase letter. Namespaces starting 
with a lowercase letter are reserved for pragmas.

> $x->bar();
> $x->barx();
> 
> package foo;
> 
> sub new {
> my $this = shift;
> my $class = ref($this) || $this;

Don't do this:

http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/UnixReview/col52.html

Just extract the $class.

Now to answer your question.

> my $self={};
> bless ($self, $class);
> return $self;
> }
> 
> sub bar
> {
> my $self = shift;
> print "foo\n";
> }
> #################################
> 
> now, executing this code with "perl -cw script.pl" will not produce any
> errors since the call for the reference of "barx" will only
> be evaluated during runtime.
> is there a way to detect such errors in compile time?

First of all, you can sort of cheat and use ->can (see perldoc UNIVERSAL) or 
whatever in a BEGIN { ... } block, which -c runs. Otherwise, there cannot be a 
way because the class with which a variable is blessed to is not known at 
compile-time and may actually change in run-time:

[code]
my $x = OneClass->new(...);
.
.
.
if (int(rand(2)) == 0)
{
	$x = CompletelyDifferentClass->new(...);
}
.
.
.
$x->my_method();? # What now?
[/code]

So you need to rely on the run-time exception and your automated tests' suite 
to overcome this:

https://docs.google.com/View?id=dcsvntt2_25wpjvbbhk (Strong Typing vs. Strong 
Testing).

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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