CGI::Application::PlugUserCContribuCGI::Application::Plugin::Config::Simple(3)NAMECGI::Application::Plugin::Config::Simple - Add Config::Simple support
to CGI::Application
SYNOPSIS
in your CGI::Application based module
use CGI::Application::Plugin::Config::Simple;
sub cgiapp_init {
my $self = shift;
#set my config file
$self->config_file('myapp.conf');
#
#do other stuff
#
}
#later on in a run mode
sub run_mode1 {
my $self = shift;
#just get a single parameter from my config file
my $value = $self->config_param('my_param');
#get a parameter in a block (if using ini style files)
$value = $self->config_param('my_block.my_param');
#the entire config hash reference
my $config_vars = $self->config_param();
#get my Config::Simple object for direct access
my $config = $self->config;
}
DESCRIPTION
This module acts as a plugin for Config::Simple to be easily used
inside of a CGI::Application module. It does not provide every method
available from Config::Simple but rather easy access to your
configuration variables. It does however provide direct access to the
underlying Config::General object created if you want to use it's full
power.
The module tries to make the getting and setting of configuration
variables as easy as possible. Only three methods are exported into
your CGI::Application module and they are described below.
Before I wrote this module sometimes I would put my code that read in
the configuration file into the cgiapp_init() or cgiapp_prerun()
methods but then if I had a run mode that didn't need those config
variables it was run anyway. This module helps to solve this is. The
Config::Simple object is not created (and the config file is not read
and parsed) until after your first call to config() or config_param()
to either retrieve/set values, or get the Config::Simple object. This
lazy loading idea came from Cees Hek's
CGI::Application::Plugin::Session module.
METHODSconfig_param()
This method acts as an accessor/mutator for configuration variables
coming from the configuration file.
This method will behave in three different ways depending on how many
parameters it is passed. If 0 parameters are passed then the entire
config structure will be returned as a hash ref. If 1 parameters is
passed then the value of that parameter in the config file will be
returned. If more than 1 parameter is passed then it will treat them as
name value pairs and will set the parameters in the config file
accordingly. In this case, if we successfully set the parameters then a
true value will be returned.
#get the complete config hash
my $config_hash = $self->config_param();
#just get one config value
my $value = $self->config_param($parameter);
#set multiple config values
my $success = $self->config_param(param1 => $value1, param2 => $value2);
This method uses Config::Simple so if you are using ini-files then you
can set the values of variables inside blocks as well using the '.'
notation. See Config::Simple;
You must set the name of the configuration file either using the
config_file() method or the CGIAPP_CONFIG_FILE environment variable
before calling this method or it will 'die'.
config()
This method will return the underlying Config::Simple object for more
direct use by your application. You must set the name of the
configuration file either using the config_file() method or the
CGIAPP_CONFIG_FILE environment variable before calling this method or
it will 'die'.
my $conf = $self->config();
config_file([$file_name])
This method acts as an accessor/mutator to either get the name of the
current config file or to change/initialize it. This method must be
called to initialize the name of the config file before any call can be
made to either config() or config_param() unless the
'CGIAPP_CONFIG_FILE' environment variable has been set. If this
environment variable is set it will be used as the initial value of the
config file. This is useful if we are running in a mod_perl environment
when can use a statement like this in your httpd.conf file:
PerlSetEnv CGIAPP_CONFIG_FILE /path/to/my/conf
It is typical to set the name of the config file in the cgiapp_init()
phase of your application.
If a value is passed as a parameter then the config file with that name
is used. It will always return the name of the current config file.
#get the value of the CGIAPP_CONFIG_FILE environment variable (if there is one)
#since we haven't set the config file's name with config_file() yet.
my $file_name = $self->config_file();
#set the config file's name
$self->config_file('myapp.conf');
#get the name of the config file
$file_name = $self->config_file();
CAVEATS
The CGI::Application object is implemented as a hash and we store the
variables used by this module's methods inside of it as a hash named
__CONFIG_SIMPLE. If you use any other CGI::Application plugins there
would be problems if they also used $self->{__CONFIG_SIMPLE} but in
practice this should never actually happen.
AUTHOR
Michael Peters <mpeters@plusthree.com>
Thanks to Plus Three, LP (http://www.plusthree.com) for sponsoring my
work on this module
SEE ALSO
· CGI::Application
· Config::Simple
LICENSE
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
perl v5.14.12CGI::Application::Plugin::Config::Simple(3)